Case: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhakcommittee Vs. Lt. Sardar Raghbir Singh And Others

The plaintiff in the appeal is the Committee of Management of Sikh Gurdwaras within the Municipal limits of Amritsar (except the Gurdwara Sri Akal Takhat Sahib, Amritsar). The plaint was filed under section 25-A of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, (Punjab Act VIII of 1925) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for possession of certain properties situated in Amritsar, marked and bounded as specified in the plaint and purporting to have been declared as a Sikh Gurdwara by the Government of Punjab under Section 17 of the Act by means of the notification No. 9.G dated the 3rdcase of the plaintiff-Committee is that these properties were, and were determined to be, a Sikh Gurdwara, by name Gurdwara Bunga Sarkar, by the Sikh Gurdwara Tribunal by its decree dated the 4th November, 1935 and confirmed on appeal therefrom by the High Court of Judicature at Lahore, on the 16th June, 1936 and that accordingly the Committee was entiled to possession of the properties. The facts that have led up to the present appeal are as follows : After the Act was passed and within one year of its commencement the then existing non-statutory Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee filed a list under section 3 of the Act claiming the suit properties and certain other items attached thereto as belonging to the Gurdwara Harmandir Sahib. These properties comprised two items called Bunga Sarkar and Bunga Mai Mallan and the shops appurtenant to each ofwere filed to this list by way of two applications under Section 8 of the Act claiming these as private properties. One was by Sardar Balwant Singh dated the 8th March 1928 and the other was by Sardar Raghbir Singh dated the 10th March, 1928. Sardar Raghbir Singh claimed the whole of Bunga Sarkar and its appurtenant shops as well as 1/3rd of the Bunga Mai Mallan and of the appurtenant shops. Sardar Balwant Singhs claim was confined to 1/3rd share in Bunga Mai Mallan and in the appurtenant shops. The other 1/3rd share in Bunga Mai Mallan was apparently treated by these claimants as belonging to some other person who was not a party to thesetwo applications were forwarded under Section 14 of the Act to the Gurdwara Tribunal for its decision. The parties to these proceedings entered into a compromise on the 6th February, 1930. There were two compromises one relating to each of the applications. The net effect of the compromises was that some out of the items claimed were admitted to be the private property of the respective claimants and the rest as wakf bungas for the Yatries to Sri Darbar Sahib, that the non personal properties were to remain in the management of the claimants, their heirs and representatives as such wakf with certain stipulations as to how that management was to be carried on. The Tribunal disposed of the two applications before them in terms of thesemay be mentioned that though the original list under Section 3 of the Act was filed by the then non-statutory Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the compromises were entered into by the Managing Committee of the Gurdwaras within the limits of the Municipal Committee, Amritsar, which presumably had already by then been formed under Section 85 of the Act. Now, quite independently of these proceedings before the Tribunal, and prior to the filing of the list under Section 3 and of the objections under Section 5 above referred to, there had been filed a petition under Section 7 of the Act, signed by 55 Sikhs, claiming these very properties as being in themselves a Sikh Gurdwara by name Bunga Sarkar (Maharaja Ranjit Singh Saheb) and enclosing a list of properties as belonging thereto under section 7 (2)of thedoes not appear that this petition was brought to the notice of the Gurdwara Tribunal when it passed the decree in terms of the compromise with reference to the objections under Section 5 of the Act. The petition under Section 7 was in the usual course followed by a notification issued by the Government on the 18th February, 1930, under Section 7 (3) of the Act. This resulted in (1) an objection under Section 8 by the Grant his objecting that this was not a Sikh Gurdwara, and (2) two other objections by Sardar Raghbir Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh, already previously above referred to, under Section 10 of the Act claiming the properties as their own and objecting to the claim made that they were Sikhobjections were filed on the 5th April, 1930. It may be noticed that the notification under Section 7(3) of the Act was within a few days after the compromise decrees in the proceedings under Section 5 of the Act and it does not appear whether the compromises were brought to the notice of the Government or not. These objections under Sections 8 and 10 (and presumably also the petition under section 7) were forwarded to the Tribunal for its decision under section 14 of the Act. The petition under Section 8 filed by the Granthis was contested by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (Statutory) and after recording some evidence, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that Bunga Sarkar was a Sikh Gurdwara and declared it as such on the 28th August,On the objections under Section 10, notices were given to the Committee of Management as well as to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee but they declined to become parties tocontest under section 10 of the Act was only as between the claimants and some of the Sikhs who filed the petition under Section 7. At the hearing before the Tribunal both sides relied upon the previous compromises in support of their respective claims. The Tribunal by its decision dated the 4th November, 1935, decided that the properties which had been declared as the properties of Sardar Raghbir Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh respectively, should be declared to be their personal properties and that the rest of the properties claimed to belong to Bunga Sarkar and Bunga Mai Mallan should be declared to be Sikh Gurdwaras and as properties appurtenant thereto. It was also declared that these two Gurdwaras and the properties held to be appurtenant to them should vest in the management of Sardar Raghbir Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh by virtue of and as per terms of theagainst these decrees two appeals were presented by the Sikh worshippers to the High Court and the only question that ultimately appears to have been raised was that the direction given by the Tribunal to the effect that the properties should remain in the management of the claimants, Sardar Raghbir Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh, was legal. The High Court without giving any decision on the legal question so raised was of the opinion that it was no function of the Sikh Gurdwara Tribunal to pass an order on an application made under section 10 by the claimants that the claimants should manage the properties appurtenant to the Gurdwaras by virtue of the compromises. They thought that the question of right of management should be left open in these proceedings and that the directions in the decree of the Tribunal relating to the management should be deleted therefrom and that the rest of the decrees of the Sikh Gardwara Tribunal is to stand. They expressed their conclusion in the following termsportion of the decree of the Sikh Gurdwaras Tribunal which has declared the respondents right to manage the Gurdwaras and the properties appended thereto shall form no part of the decree granted by the Tribunal; the rest of the decree of the Sikh Gurdwaras Tribunal stands, that is to say, the properties which have been declared to be the personal properties of Sardar Raghubir Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh shall remain their properties and the properties which have been declared to be appended to the two Gurdwaras shall remain the properties of the twoHigh Court also added that, though the proceedings mentioned the existence of two Gurdwaras by name Bunga Sarkar and Bunga Mai Malan, the real position seemed to be that there was only one Gurdwara, viz., Bunga Sarkar, and that Bunga Mai Mallan had no separate existence as a Gurdwara but was a well-known part of Bunga Sarkar. This decision of the High Court was on the 16th June,This was followed by notification No. 9-G dated the 3rd March, 1937 under Section 17 of the Act which is the foundation of the present suit.

Court's reasoning:
On the merits, the case for the plaintiff is quite simple. The plaintiff says that whatever may be the position with reference to the earlier compromises arrived at between the parties in the proceedings under Section 5 of the Act, the later proceedings with reference to those very properties under Section 10 of the Act resulted in the judgment of the High Court dated the 16th June 1936, which is conclusive and binding. By virtue of the said judgment and the notification dated the 3rd March, 1937, following thereupon, the plaintiff is entitled to possession of the properties by virtue of S. 25A of the Act.Though we have heard elaborate arguments from both sides on these various contentions, it appeared to us ultimately that the plea of limitation is decisive against the appellants and that it is unnecessary to express any opinion on any of the other contentions raised.Hence so far as our present purpose is concerned, the policy underlying Section 86 does not necessarily apply to the Gurdwaras within the Municipal limits of Amritsar for which a Committee already exists.Moreover, sub-section (2) of S. 88 provides with reference to Committees under Section 85, that, as soon as all the members described therein have been elected or co-opted, the fact should be duly, notified, and also declares in clear and categorical terms that the date of the publication of the notification shall be deemed to be the date of the constitution of thethe face of this deeming provision relating to these committees, it is not permissible to impute to such a Committee any other date as the date of its constitution for any of the purpose of the Act and to imply an exception and an addendum to the specific deeming provision. This would be legislating. We cannot therefore, accept the contention of the appellant that the date of the notification under Section 17 in the present case should be deemed to be the date of the constitution of the Committee concerned for the purposes of Section 25-A.It has been urged that this view deprives the Committee of the benefit of the longer alternative period of limitation and that in a case where no notification under Section 17 has been issued until after the expiry of an year from the date of the final decision that the Gurdwara claimed is a Sikh Gurdwara, the remedy under Section 25-A would become inapplicable. It may be that an exceptional case of undue delay in the publication of the notification may be a casus omissus but such a delay need not be assumed to be a matter of course. That, at any rate is not the present case where the notification was in fact issued within nine months of the decision of the High Court. The Committee which should have been alert with reference to these matters, had, not only the whole of these nine months to take steps to get the notification published earlier, but, it had three months thereafter to come forward with the present suit. However this may be, we do not consider that there is any question of hardship, because obviously Section 25-A is only an enabling section providing a cheap remedy by way of a suit before the Tribunal itself. We are clearly of the opinion that the present suit under Section 25-A is barred by limitation and on this ground the appeal must fail.