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Judgment
King, J.—These petitions are to revise an order of the learned District Judge of Madura passed u/s 5 of the Charitable and Religious Trusts
Act (XIV of 1920) in respect of the Endowments of the Thirugnana Sambanda Pandara Sannadhi Mutt. It is urged that for two reasons the District
Judge had no jurisdiction to pass this order.
Because since the passing of Madras Act II of 1927 (Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act) the charitable and Religious Trusts Act can no
longer have any applicability to any religious endowments in this Presidency.
Because in any case Act XIV of 1920 cannot be applied as appellant the head of the Mutt, is not in any sense a trustee but has absolute and
unfettered control over the property and income of the Mutt.
In regard to the first reason it will be noted that appellant is unable to plead that Madras Act II of 1927 has repealed any of the provisions of
Act XIV of 1920. The ruling therefore which has been cited before us Lachmi v. Aba I.L.R.(1908) 32 Bom. 634 is of no assistance to him, and
we can see no reason to differ from the District Judge''s finding that Act II of 1927 did not take away his jurisdiction. The only question which then
arises is whether the District Judge has made any perverse use of his discretion in taking action under Act XIV of 1920. The District Judge freely
concedes that the two Acts to a certain extent cover the same ground, but he nevertheless passed the order complained of on the ground that the
Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Board had shown no inclination to exercise its powers under the Madras Act. This seems to us a perfectly
good reason for the exercise of his discretion. It is further contended before us that if the appellant were to fail to comply with the District Judge''s
order the only remedy would be the filing of a suit by the plaintiffs before the District Judge who are private persons, and that the Madras Act
permits no such suits to be filed except by the Board. We are referred to Section 6 of Act XIV of 1920 in support of this argument, and we
immediately find in that section the words ''without prejudice to any other penalty or liability which he may incur under any law for the time being in
force'' words which render the argument futile.
The second reason was not in its present form urged at all before the District Judge where all that was urged was that appellant was a trustee
only to a limited extent. This argument has been adequately refuted in the District Judge''s order and we do not propose to consider in these
revision petitions arguments which were not put forward before the District Judge.
These petitions accordingly fail and must be dismissed with costs. Costs in one petition, to be equally divided.