The High Court's jurisdiction under S. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure to interfere with the selection and nomination of trustees is limited to cases where the subordinate court has exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law or has failed to exercise a jurisdiction vested in it by law or has acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity.

1. Disappointed by non-selection as hereditary trustees and non-nomination as non-hereditary trustees in the matter of selection/nomination of trustees to Mathurasatul Salathi Fi Adrabil Falahi Trust (hereinafter called ‘the trust’), petitioners 1 to 6 and petitioners 7 to 11 respectively, have filed this Civil Revision Petition, under S. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, challenging the Order of the learned District Judge, West Thanjavur, in O.S. No. 6 of 1970 dated 25.9.1992.

2. Brief facts leading to the filing of this Revision Petition arc the following:—The Trust was founded in the year 1900 and after the death of the founders, when disputes arose, a scheme suit was filed and the administration of the Trust thereafter was being carried on in terms of the Scheme decree as modified from time to time. It is common ground that as per the modified Scheme, for the administration of the Trust, there must be six hereditary trustees to be selected from three main branches, two from each main branch. In addition to that, there should be three non-hereditary trustees to be nominated by the District Judge, West Thanjavur. The selection of hereditary trustees is also made by the District Judge, West Thanjavur. In all, there should be nine trustees. It appears, when the selection was made on an earlier occasion, disputes arose about the correctness of the selection which went upto the Supreme Court. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court passed the following Order:—

“Special leave granted. We are not inclined at this stage to set aside the order of the District Judge. Let the present set of trustees work upto May 31, 1992. The District Judge, however will take steps in the month of January 1992 for making advertisements in the newspapers inviting applications for the posts of trustees and those applications will be considered by him and objections made thereto will also be considered by the District Judge and the entire matter will be completed by March 31, 1992. While selecting the new set of trustees, the District Judge will not take into consideration any observations that have been made previously and consider the matter independently on merits.

The present set of trustees will function till the end of May 1992. If any objection is made against the selection of any of the trustees and the same goes to the High Court, the High Court will also look into all those objections and dispose of the same and complete the selection by May 31, 1992 so that the new set of trustees can take up their trusteeship and manage from the beginning of June 1992 for a period of three years, as has been provided in the scheme. We, therefore, set aside the judgment and order rendered by the High Court in the Civil Revision Petitions and uphold the judgment of the District Judge made in O.S. 6 of 1970.

The appeal is disposed of with the above observations.”

3. Pursuant to the above Order of the Supreme Court, the learned District Judge called for applications for selection and nomination of hereditary and non-hereditary trustees. In view of certain proceedings pending in this Court staying the proceedings before the District Judge, West Thanjavur, it appears, he could not adhere to the schedule given in the above said Order of the Supreme Court. The stay was vacated on 7.7.1992, and, after collecting the applications, the learned District Judge posted the matter for appearance of the applicants on 25.8.1992. On that date, he gave time till 3.9.1992 to file objections, if any, to the applications already received. As the District Judge was on leave on 3.9.1992, the objections were received on 4.9.1992, and time to file reply to the objections was given till 15.9.1992. After receiving the reply, the learned District Judge heard arguments on 15.9.1992 and 16.9.1992 and passed orders on 25.9.1992 selecting the respondents 1 to 6 herein as hereditary trustees and nominating the respondents 7 to 9 herein as non-hereditary trustees to the Trust. Aggrieved b