Wallis, C.J.

1. It is well settled that the succession to temple offices is governed by user which is taken to represent the intentions of the founder, and it is not disputed that in this part of India the user in the case of temple archakas is that the office is hereditary and descends in the ordinary course of succession to women who are not themselves competent to perform the duties of the office by ministering in the temple and perfom them by deputy. The opinion of the pandits in 1853 in M.S.D.A. 261 shows that this was then the recognised usage. The question appears to have first come before the Court in 1910, but since that time there have been numerous decisions where the user has been recognised and enforced, and all the Hindu members of the Court with one exception have been parties to these decisions which also are conformable with the decisions of other High Courts. The only authority the other way is the judgment of Sadasiva Aiyar, J., in Sundarambal Animal v. Yogavana Gurukkal (1914) I.L.R. 38 Mad. 850 who considered that on principle a personally disqualified heir could not inherit the office and delegate the duties to others. In the argument before us it was a