JUDGMENT

M. N. Shukla, J. - This is a defendant's second appeal which arises out of a suit for a permanent injunction restraining the defendant from. preventing the plaintiffs from taking part in the management of a temple and its properties in terms of the award dated 1.6.1929. The suit was decreed by both the courts below and aggrieved by the same the defendant has come up in the second appeal to this Court.

2. The suit was brought on the allegations that Hakim Amba Prasad, ancestor of the parties died in 1925 leaving considerable movable and immovable property in Farrukhabad including a temple of Sri Ganesh Ji Maharaj, that after his death there was a dispute between the sons and grandsons of the deceased regarding the division of the properties and also the management of the temple and consequently the dispute was referred to arbitration of one Lalman who gave his award on 1-6-1929 which was accepted and acted upon by the parties, that in terms of the award the management of the temple vested in the three parties to the award and their heirs generation after generation and each of the parties was given a right to manage the temple and the property for five years in turn as Mutwalli, that the plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 3 resided in Kanpur and the plaintiffs Nos. 4 and 6 mere minors and hence the plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 3 permitted the appellant to manage the temple and its property that the said plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 3 had now shifted to Delhi and had decided to manage the affairs of the temple themselves in terms of the award but the appellant was not prepared to allow the plaintiffs to do so and hence the suit.

3. The defence was that the appellant was managing the affairs of the temple in his own right under the will of Hakim Amba Prasad made in 1921 and was holding the office of the managership since his death, that lie was managing the affairs without the help of the plaintiffs for the last more than 39 years adversely to the exclusion of the plaintiffs and as such he had prescribed for the office of managership of adverse possession and it vested in him alone, that the plaintiffs were out of possession for more than 12 years and the suit was barred by time, that the appellant never managed the affairs with the permission of the plaintiffs and as a matter of fact he did not allow the plaintiffs to act as managers or helpers in managing the affairs, that this amounted to a total ouster of the plaintiffs who always resided outside Farrukhabad since 1925, that they were not fit to look after the affairs of the temple and hold the office of managership and hence the relief of injunction should be refused to them.

4. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties. Two points were canvassed before me on behalf of the appellant. Firstly, the point which looms large in the memo of appeal and which alone seems to have been expressly raised in the ground as also in the courts below was that of adverse possession, The sole ground on the basis of which the appellant seems to have contested the plaintiffs' suit in the lower appellate court was that he had been in adverse possession of the management of the temple and holding of the mela, that despite the award he continued to manage and act as manager to the exclusion of the other members of the family including the plaintiffs and consequently he had acquired a title to the shebaitship by adverse possession. This plea did not find favour with the courts below and they came to the conclusion that the appellant had not acquired, the right of managership by adverse possession. That finding appears to be well founded. In the plaint there was a clear averment that the plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 3 had admitted the defendant to manage the affairs of the temple as the latter was the eldest person on the spot and the aforesaid plaintiffs lived outside Farrukhabad. In fact, in the written statement itself it is pleaded that the plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 3 always lived outside since 1925. The defendant in his de