JUDGMENT

1. The facts which have given rise to this appeal are that one Baba Gyan Das dedicated his entire property to Sri Thakurji Maharaj temple situated at Nawabganj under a deed of endowment (Ex. 2) executed on 26th January 1926. By this deed he appointed the plaintiff as sarpanch and defendants 2, 3, 4 and 9 and one Ganesh Tewari as panches, and further provided that he would remain the sarbarahkar of the temple so long as he lived and after his death the panches and the sarpanch mentioned above would manage the property. Ganesh Tewari died in the lifetime of Gyan Das. Baba Gyan Das on 7th July 1936 executed a will (Ex. A-2) under which he appointed defendant 1 as sarbarahkar and defendants 2 to 8 as panches to manage the temple Jointly. Baba Gvan Das died the same day. The plaintiff brought the suit out of which this appeal has arisen for a declaration that he is the sarpanch and sarbarahkar and defendants 2 to 4 and 9 are the panches under the original deed of endowment dated 26th January 1926, and as such entitled to manage the temple in preference to the rest of the defendants. The chief contesting defendant was defendant 1, who raised several defences, the chief of which was that the scheme of management laid down in the will executed on 7th July 1936, abrogated the original scheme laid down in the deed of endowment. The plaintiff in reply contended that the deed executed by Baba Gyan Das on 7th July 1936 was invalid because the founder had no power left to interfere with the scheme of management laid down in the deed of endowment. We do not mention other points that arose for decision in the case because they were not agitated before us here in appeal.

2. The trial Court decreed the suit holding that Baba Gyan Das could not alter the line of management and the will relied upon by defendant 1 was invalid in law. Defendant 1 has come up in appeal to this Court against the decree of the lower Court and the only point for decision is whether Baba Gyan Das could interfere afterwards with the scheme of management laid down by him in the deed of endowment. It is well settled that the management of the temple property remains with the founder and his heirs in the absence of any direction as to management. The right to manage the dedicted property remains with the founder and after his death descends to his heirs according to the personal law or usage governing the rules of inheritance. The founder has however complete power of disposing of that right and if he has once exercised his right of disposing of that right no further right of disposal, in the absence of any reservation, is left with him. In the present case when Baba Gyan Das executed the deed of endowment, he by the same deed disposed of the right of management and laid down that during his lifetime he will remain the sarbarahkar and after his death the sarpanch and the panches named by him in that deed would manage the property. He did not reserve any right to himself of changing that scheme. In Macnaughten's Principles of Hindu Law, Vol. 2, p. 305, it was stated that:

It is now settled law that the appointment and succession to the office of a shebalt must follow the line laid down in the original grant and in the absence of special direction and usage the heirs of the donor succeed.

3. In Mulla's Hindu Law, Edn. 8, p. 489, it is stated as follows:

But the founder is not entitled to alter the line of succession or to interfere in the management, unless he has, by the deed of endowment, reserved the right to do so.

4. The learned Counsel for the appellant has strongly relied upon a case reported in Sripati Chatterjee v. Khudiram Banerjee AIR 1925 Cal 442. In this case this particular point did not directly arise. One of the learned Judges, i.e. Chakravarty J., discussed the law at considerable length and laid down that the rule prohibiting a Hindu from creating a special line of succession unknown to Hindu law did not apply to the case of an appointment of a sheba