Sumangala Maha Nayake Thero Et Al. V. The Registrar General

 

1941    

 Present : Keuneman J.

 

SUMANGALA MAHA NAYAKE THERO et al. v. THE
REGISTRAR-GENERAL.

 

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF Mandamus

 

Mandamus-Application to remove the name of an expelled bhikku from register-Right of applicants to compel the respondent to perform the statutory duty-Special and sufficient interest-Supreme Court not satisfied with motives of applicants-Refusal of writ. The members of the Karaka Maha Sangha Sabha of the Malwatte branch of the Siamese Sect of the Buddhist priesthood including the Maha Nayaka of the Malwatte Vihara have a special and sufficient interest in the subject-matter which entitles them to apply for a mandamus on the Registrar-General to compel him to remove from the register kept under s. 41 (5) of the Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance the name of a Bhikkhu whom they have Expelled from the Sangha.

 

The Supreme Court will refuse a writ of mandamus where it is not satisfied as to the propriety of the motives of the applicants or where there has been considerable delay in making the application.

 

THIS was an application for a writ of mandamus on the Registrar-General. The facts appear from the argument.

 

H. V. Perera, K.C. (with him N. E. Weerasooria, K.C., J. R. Jaya-wardene and V. F. Gunaratne), for the petitioners.-The intervenient is a party interested in this application, and there is no objection to the intervention being allowed.

 

The Karaka Maha Sangha Sabha is the highest ecclesiastical body of the Siamese sect, consisting of about 6,000 bhikkhus. We say that in the course of its duties, it expelled the intervenient in 1935. The Maha Nayaka who is the chairman of it, removed the name of the intervenient from the register under section 41 (5) of Cap. 222, and requested the Registrar-General to alter his register similarly. He refused to do it on the ground that the Ordinance did not contemplate cases of expulsion, and the Maha Nayaka applied for a mandamus. The Supreme Court held that the Ordinance did contemplate expulsions, and it was the Registrar-General's clear duty to comply with such requests. See Maha Nayaka Thero v. Registrar-General [1 39 N'. L. R. 186.]

 

In the exercise of its discretionary power, however, the Supreme Court refused the application on the sole ground of improper motive. I submit that Soertsz J. erred in thinking that it was the Maha Nayaka personally who expelled the intervenient. The expulsion was in fact by the Sangha Sabha. My contention is, therefore, that the ground of refusal was not personal to the Maha Nayaka.

 

Thereafter, the first petitioner again wrote to the Registrar-General to strike off the intervenients name, and upon his refusal the Karaka Sabha met again, and specially authorised its Secretary, the tenth petitioner, to writ

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