Top Court accepts Change Reports pertaining to Administrator & Trustees of Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan, says repeated attacks by devotees on such reports only indicates their inimical attitude
Justices A.S. Bopanna & Sanjay Kumar [25-04-2024]

Read Order: Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan, Shelgi v. Subhash Mallikarjun Birajdar and others [SC- Civil Appeal Nos. 5323-5324 of 2024]

LE Correspondent

New Delhi, April 29, 2024: The Supreme Court has allowed the civil appeals filed against the judgment of the Bombay High Court invalidating the acceptance of Change Reports in relation to the Vahiwatdar (Administrator) and Trustees of the public Trust, Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan in Maharashtra’s Shelgi. The Top Court opined that when failure to file a Change Report would not be fatal in itself, the delay in filing a Report cannot automatically impact the assumption of office by a Vahiwatdar.

The Division Bench of Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar was considering the issue regarding the acceptance of Change Reports in relation to the Vahiwatdar (Administrator) and Trustees of Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan, Shelgi, a Public Trust, is in issue. The Bombay High Court had invalidated such acceptance and remanded the matters to the Deputy Charity Commissioner, Solapur Region, Solapur, for consideration afresh.

It was brought to the Court’s attention that the orders of remand had not been acted upon owing to the pendency of cases. Further, in terms of the High Court’s directions, the Vahiwatdar and the Trustees, whose names were already entered in the records, were continuing to administer the Trust as on date.

The factual background of the case was that by an application dated 26.05.1952, Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Patil applied for registration of Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan, Shelgi, as a Public Trust, under Section 18 of the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, now known as Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950. The object of this Trust was the upkeep and maintenance of Shri Mallikarjun Temple at Shelgi, North Solapur Taluka. Shri Mallikarjun Devasthan, Shelgi, was accordingly registered as a Public Trust. The mode of succession of managership and trusteeship, as provided in the application, was that Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Patil was to be the Vahiwatdar of the Trust and the eldest male member of his family was to succeed him. Further, the Vahiwatdar was also empowered to co-opt others, if and when necessary.

Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Patil passed away in the year 1992 and his eldest son, Ashok Mallikarjun Patil, became the Vahiwatdar of the Trust. Thereafter, Ashok Mallikarjun Patil died on 16.02.1997 and his brother, Jagdishchandra Mallikarjun Patil, took over. Jagdishchandra was the third son of Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Pati, but his elder brother, Satish Patil, the second son of Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Pati, had no interest in taking over as the Vahiwatdar of the Trust. Thus, Jagdishchandra assumed the role of Vahiwatdar though he was not the eldest male member in the family.

The Bench took note of the fact that the Act of 1950 was amended in the year 2017, whereby a proviso was added in Section 22(1). This proviso states that the Deputy or Assistant Charity Commissioner may extend the period of 90 days for reporting the change, on being satisfied that there was a sufficient cause for not reporting the change within the stipulated period, subject to payment of costs by the reporting Trustee to the Public Trust Administration Fund. However, no such proviso was in existence at the time Change Report was submitted by Jagdishchandra. Despite the same, he had filed a delay condonation application therewith praying for condonation of the delay on his part in filing the report. 

The Top Court affirmed that the proviso added in Section 22(1) in the year 2017 is merely clarificatory in nature as is evident from the fact that it was added in Section 22(1) and it did not bring about any substantive change. It was made clear by the Bench that Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963, could be invoked for condonation of the delay in the submission of a Change Report. 

The Joint Charity Commissioner, Pune, proceeded on the understanding that the delay had already been condoned. He passed an order to that effect and that order was never challenged by the applicants in Revision Application of the Birajdar family. Once that order attained finality, it was not open to them to ignore the same and reopen the issue of delay before the High Court. All the more so, when the issue of delay was never raised by them in Revision Application and was raised for the very first time only in the writ petition filed against the judgment passed therein.

“Therefore, when failure to file a Change Report would not be fatal in itself, the delay in filing a Change Report cannot automatically impact the assumption of office by a Vahiwatdar of a Trust. The very fact that a proviso was added in Section 22(1) of the Act of 1950, enabling the authority concerned to condone the delay in the filing of the Change Report, if sufficient cause is made out, clearly indicates that such delay is curable and the delay in filing a Change Report would not, by itself, entail non-acceptance or nullification of the changes in the Trust which are sought to be informed to the authorities with delay”, it added.

In this case, the devotees, all bearing the same family name Birajdar, who are raising objections seem to have a grievance with the very registration of the subject Trust, but their revision in that regard stood dismissed and appeared to have attained finality. The Bench observed that after such dismissal, in the capacity of being devotees of the Temple, they can have no legitimate grievance with regard to the succession to the post of Vahiwatdar of the subject Trust. More so, when the eldest male member in the founders family had no issue with it. 

Though it had been contended on behalf of the devotees that the Trust was not taking proper care of the Temple, the Bench was of the view that such an issue cannot be a ground for them to challenge the Change Reports relating to the Vahiwatdar and the Trustees of the subject Trust.”Their repeated attempts to attack the Change Reports relating to assumption of office by the new administration of the Trust only indicates their inimical attitude thereto and to the family of the founder, Mallikarjun Mahalingappa Patil. All in all, much ado about nothing!”, the Bench said.

As per the Top Court, the High Court adopted a rather hyper technical approach by attaching so much importance to the delay in the submission of the first Change Report as it was a curable defect. Thus, setting aside the impugned judgment, the Top Court allowed the Civil appeals by accepting the change Reports.