MAHANT RAM SAROOP DASJI versus S. P. SARI, SPECIAL OFFICER-IN-CHARGE OF THE HINDU RELIGIOUS TRUSTS AND OTHERS

Citation: [1959] SUPP. 2 S.C.R. 583 · Decided: 15-04-1959 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: SUDHI RANJAN DAS · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

(2) S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
583 
MAHANT RAM SAROOP DASJI 
v. 
S. P. SARI, SPECIAL OFFICER-IN-CHARGE 
OF THE HINDU RELIGIOUS TRUSTS 
AND OTHERS 
(S. R. DAS, c. J., s. K. DAS, P. B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, 
K. N. WANCiIOO and M. HIDAYATULLAH, JJ.) 
Hindu Religious Trusts-Private Trusts-Applicability of 
Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act-Religious Endowments, public 
and private-Distinction between-Definition of "religious trust " 
-Scope and Effect-Bihar Hindu Religious Trnsts Act, z950 
(Bihar I of z95z), SS. 2(I), 4(5), ]O(I), 32, 48· 
The appellant as the Mahant of the Salouna asthal made an 
application in the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitu-
tion praying inter alia for the issue of a writ quashing the order 
of the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts requiring the appel-
lant to submit a return of income and expenditure under s. 59 of 
the Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act, 1950, on the grounds, inter 
alia, that the Salouna asthal was a private institution and not a 
religious trust within the meaning of the Act and that the Act 
did not apply to private trusts. 
The High Court took the view 
that the language of s. 2(1) of the Act, which defined a " religious 
trust", was wide enough to cover within its -ambit both private 
and public trusts recognised by Hindu law and that the Salouna 
asthal did not come within any of the two exceptions recognised 
by the section. 
Held, that on a true and proper construction of the provi-
sions of the Act, considered in the background of previous 
legislative history with regard to religious, charitable or pious 
trusts in India, the definition clause in s. 2(1) of the Act 
does not include within its ambit private trusts and that the 
provisions of the Act do not apply to such trusts. 
The essential distinction in Hindu law between religious 
endowments which are public and thos! which are private is that 
in a public trust the beneficial interest is vested in an uncertain 
and fluctuating body of persons, either the public at large or some 
considerable portion of it answering a particular description ; in 
a private trust the beneficiaries are definite and ascertained 
individuals or who within a time can be definitely ascertained. 
The fact that the uncertain and fluctuating body' of persons is a 
section of the public following a particular religious faith or fa 
only a sect of persons of a certain religious persuasion would not 
make any difference in the matter and would not make the trust 
a private trust. 
I959 
April r5. 
t959 
Mahant Ram 
Saroop Dasji 
v. 
S. P. Sahi 
S. K. Das]. 
584 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1959] Supp. 
CIVIL 
APPELLATE JURISDICTION: 
No. 343 of 1955. 
Civil Appeal 
Appeal from the judgment and order dated Septem-
ber 13, 1954, of the Patna High Court in Misc. Judl. 
Case No. 39of1954. 
L. K. Jha, B. K. P. $inha and R. G. Prasad, for 
the appellant. 
Mahabir Prasad, Advocate-General for the State of 
Bihar, Ishwari Nandan Prasad and S. P. Varma, for 
the respondents. 
1959. April 15. The Judgment of the Court was 
delivered· by 
S. K. DAS, J.-This appeal on a certificate granted 
by the High Court of Patna is from a judgment of the 
said High Court dated September 13, 1954, in a writ 
proceeding numbered as Miscellaneous Judicial Caso 
No. 39 of 1954 in that court, which the appellant had 
instituted on an application made under Art. 226 of 
the Constitution in the circumstances stated below. 
It was alleged that one Mahatma Ma~t Ramji, a 
Hindu saint, owned and possessed considerable pro-
perties in the district of Monghyr in the State of 
Bihar. About two hundred years ago, he built a small 
temple at Salouna in which he installed a deity called 
Sri Thakur Lakshmi Narainji. This temple came to 
he known as the Salouna asthal. Mast Ramji died 
near about the year 1802. He was succeeded in turn 
by some of his disciples, one of whom was Mahant 
Lakshmi Dasji. - He built a·new temple in 1916 into 
which he removed the deity from the old temple and 
installed two new deities, Sri Ram and Sita. In 1919 
Mahant Lakshmi Dasji died. He left three disciples, 
Vishnu Das, Bhagwat Das and Rameshwar Das. A 
dispute arose among these disciples about succession 
to the gaddi, which was settled sometime in February 
1919. By that settlement it was arranged that Vishnu 
Das would succeed Mahant Lakshmi Das as the 
shebait and would be succeeded by Bhagwat Das, and 
thereafter the ablest " bairagi " · of the asthal, born of 
Brahmin parents, would be e

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