THE HON'BLE SMT JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT APPEAL No.: 1810 of 2001 JUDGMENT: ( Per the Hon’ble Smt Justice T.Meena Kumari) 1. Challenging the dismissal order dated 01-10-2001 passed in W. P. No. 3213 of 1995 by the learned Single Judge of this Court, which was ﬁled seeking a writ of Certiorari calling for the records relating to the impugned proceedings of the 1st respondent therein dated. 6-12- 1994 and to quash the same, the unsuccessful writ petitioner preferred the present writ appeal. 2. The appellant herein is the petitioner and the respondents herein are the respondents before the Single Judge. 3. The writ petitioner questioning the action of the respondents through their impugned proceedings issued by the Deputy Commissioner exercising the powers under Section 35 of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions & Endowments Act, 1987 and appointing Mr G Dharma Rao, IV Grade Executive Oﬃcer as a ﬁt person to look after the aﬀairs of the temple i.e., Sri Radha Govinda Swamy Mutt, Kukhalingam village, Jualamuru Mandal, Srikakulam District, and authorizing the person to in-charge of accounts, records, properties etc., of the Mutt. 4. Learned counsel for the appellant/petitioner has argued that the petitioner Mutt i.e., Sri Radha Govinda Swamy Mutt is established having its branches in Andhra Pradesh, Utter Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal and certain branches of the said Mutt are also included in the area of Srikakulam District and the main mutt is being situated at Poori in Orissa State, the institution was originally established by Sri Sri Sri Chaitanya Devasthanam Das and after his demise the institution and its management devolved upon Chela Biswambar Das and thereafter Guru Govind Singh succeeded and subsequent ly Dhyana Chand Das succeeded to the management of the petitioner institution as its Mahant. It is also the case of the appellant that by invoking the procedure laid down under Orissa Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1951, the Commissioner of Endowments, Orissa has removed the Mahant i.e., Rana Chandra Das and appointed one Sri Chakradhar Mishra as Manager of the appellant institution. The said Chakradhar Mishra, in turn, appointed one Sri S Balaram Das as Assistant Manager with the approval and consent of the Commissioner of Endowments, Orissa, to look after the branch Mutts of the petitioner-institution, which are situated in Andhra Pradesh State and in Paralakemundi of Orissa State. According to the appellant, for the institution, there are six branches in Andhra Pradesh State which are at 1) Tekkali, 2) Srimukha Lingam, 3) Nivagam, 4 ) Kothapalli, 5) Tallakota and 6) Mahadevapuram. The main grievance of the appellant is that as the main Mutt is situated at Puri which has got administrative control over these branches situated in Andhra Pradesh, by virtue of the impugned proceedings, the Assistant Commissioner has started to have control over the branch mutts in Andhra Pradesh which is not permitted under the Endowments Act of Orissa. Aggrieved by the same, the petitioners ﬁled the writ petition seeking to quash the said proceedings of the 1st respondent. 5. In the counter aﬃdavit ﬁled before the learned single judge, the department has contended that the Mutt has been registered with the A. P. Endowments Departments under Section 6 of the A. P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act 1987. The properties of the mutts are entered in the property registers of A.P. Endowments Department and the accounts of the same are being regularly audited by the Auditors of the Department and the budget is also being regularly sanctioned by the Endowments Department of Andhra Pradesh from the year 1938 onwards continuously. It is the main contention of the respondents that the appellant mutt has no manner of administrative control over the properties of the respondent No.3 and 4 Mutt and they have been established since last 50 years and hence the writ petition has to be dismissed and therefore the learned single Judge has rightly dismissed the writ petition. 6. Learned counsel for the Endowments Department and also the learned Government Pleader as well as learned Standing Counsel for 4th respondent has contended that all the branch mutts have been registered with the Endowment Department and the details of properties have been entered in to the concerned registers. The contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that they are all the branches of the main mutt in Orissa State has no legal force and if at all the appellant wants any exemption over the operations of the mutt, he has to approach the Government under Section 154 of A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act 1987 seeking the exemption of the operation of the mutt. 7. In view of the fact that having taken note of the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the appellant, we are of the opinion that even the remaining branches which are situated in the District of Srikakulam are the branches of the main mutt situated at Poori or not is purely a question of fact that has to be proved by the appellant Mutt before the appropriate authority seeking exemption under Section 154 of A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act 1987. It has to be observed that even assuming that all the branches situated in A.P. are the branches of the main mutt at Poori, it is for the appellants to apply to the Government seeking exemption of the operations of the mutt, under the provisions of Section 154 of the Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act 1987 which reads as follows: “ 154. Exemptions:- The Government may by notiﬁcation, exempt from the operation of any of the provisions of this Act or any of the rules made thereunder:- (a) any charitable institution or endowment the administration of which was or is for the time being vested- (i) in the Government either directly or through a Committee or Treasurer of Endowments, appointed for the purpose; (ii) in the oﬃcial Trustee or in the Administrator General; (b) any charitable institution or endowment founded for educational purpose or for providing medical relief; or (c) any institution or endowment which is being well managed by the founder ; or (d) any institution or endowment; and may likewise vary or cancel such exemption. 8. Under the above circumstances we are of the opinion that the order of the learned single Judge can be modiﬁed to that of a direction to the appellant to make an application under Section 154 of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987 seeking exemption from the Government for the operation of any of the provisions of the rules made there under, within a period of four (4) weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of the order and on making such application, the Government should dispose of the same, in accordance with law, after aﬀording reasonable opportunity of hearing the appellant, within a period of three (3) months thereafter, and without being inﬂuenced by any of the observations made by the learned Single Judge in the writ petition. 9. With the aforementioned observations, the writ appeal is disposed of. No costs. ______________________ T.MEENA KUMARI, J _____________________________ RAMESH RANGANATHAN, J 04-09-2008 kvrk THE HON'BLE SMT JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT APPEAL No : 1810 of 2004 (Judgment of the Division Bench prepared by Hon’ble Smt Justice T Meena Kumari) 04th SEPTEMBER 2008 THE HON'BLE SMT JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT APPEAL No.: 1810 of 2001 Dated 4th September 2008 Between: Shri Radha Kanta Math, Balasahi, Puri Orissa State (Having Branch Maths I A.P., U.P.,M.P., & West Bengal) Represented by its Manager Sahadev Pathro ..... APPELLANT/PETITIONER AND 1. The Commissioner of Endowments Andhra Pradesh, Boggulakunta Tilak Road, Hyderabad And 3 others. .....RESPONDENTS/RESPONDENTS