JUDGMENT Hamilton and Yorkk, JJ. - This is an appeal by one Gayanand Swami in a suit brought against him and others by four Plaintiffs u/s 92 of the CPC and in pursuance of the consent of the Advocate General in that behalf obtained under the section. 2. We are concerned in the first place with an issue in the nature of a preliminary issue, which is very common in such cases as these, whether the Plaintiffs have any such "interest in the trust" as to have entitled them to institute the suit. We shall, therefore, in the first place set out no more of the facts than will be necessary to enable us to deal with that issue. 3. Gayanand is said to be a pious Hindu who, in or about the year 1902, established; and had registered under the Religious Societies Act, a society called the 'Bharat Dharma Mahamandal' In relation to this institution he appears at a later stage to have become associated with a wealthy and devout Hindu lady named Rani Surat Kumari Devi who in 1913 became one of the trustees of the 'Bharat Dharma Mahamandal'. Between 1919 and 1920 this lady is said to have furnished Gayanand with considerable sums of money amounting in all to some Rs. 3,15,000 and for the present purpose, we can accept it that on the 14th December, 1919, Gayanand executed a Trust Instrument by which he settled these funds upon the trusts 'for public purposes of a charitable or religious nature' with which in this suit we are concerned. It is not in dispute that the trusts of the Trust Instrument partake of that character. This trust was known as the "Mahamaya Trust." 4. It will be sufficient at this stage to summarise the trusts somewhat briefly. The first trustees were Gayanand and the Rani themselves for their respective lives or until their respective resignations. The objects of the trust were various and catholic. This trust was known as the "Mahamaya Trust." 4. It will be sufficient at this stage to summarise the trusts somewhat briefly. The first trustees were Gayanand and the Rani themselves for their respective lives or until their respective resignations. The objects of the trust were various and catholic. They included the building of a temple at Benares, provision for the establishment of 'Puja' or worship at it when established, the establishment of a 'free kitchen' attached to the temple, the free distribution of grain and water to the poor, the performance of Hindu religious ceremonies, the making of a gift of land to a Hindu Ladies' College and widows' Home and a Hindu College of Divinity, the making of annual grants of money to the foregoing institutions so long as their teachings were conducive to the 'Varnashran Dharma' and finally, the construction and establishment of an institution which the settlor described as a "Hall of All Religions", for the promotion of the study of comparative religions and encouragement of toleration. There then followed numerous trusts and provisions for the management of the Trust, with none of which we need at this stage deal in detail, except perhaps to notice the paragraph which provided that: After the death of the founder Trustees if their successors act against the aims and objects of this Trust, the Civil Court on the application of at least 7 prominent Hindus abiding by the Varnashram Dharma rules and on enquiry as to the truth of the allegations and if satisfied, will take such steps as will set the management right, according to its noble aims. 5. We shall revert to these trusts so far as may be necessary at a later stage. In the meanwhile, according to the plaint in the suit--and it is not disputed--Gayananand had in 1924 established a Syndicate for the promotion of a public limited liability company on commercial lines which actually came into existence under the name of the "Bharat Dharma Syndicate Ltd." This company had an authorised capital of ten lacs of rupees, of which nearly nine were issued. It was formed principally to publish and deal in religious literature, though ultimately it appears to have developed into a 'banking' institution among other things. It was formed principally to publish and deal in religious literature, though ultimately it appears to have developed into a 'banking' institution among other things. We do not wish at this stage to follow the fortunes, or rather misfortunes, of the Bharat Dharma Syndicate Ltd. in detail; and indeed, it will probably be better if, in relation to the preliminary point with which we are now dealing, we do not consider what we know happened in this respect. It is sufficient for us to say that this company his since 1935 been and still is, in liquidation in this Court and that many of the very serious charges of breaches of trust which have been laid against Gayananand in this suit relate to allegations of fraudulent misappropriation of the monies of the trust in connection with his promotion of and transactions in connection with, the Bharat Dharma Syndicate Ltd. The charges made are of a serious character. 6. With this short introduction we can now approach the issue whether the four Plaintiffs ate persons who have such an 'interest in the trust' as to have entitled them to institute the suit. We have considered carefully the learned Judges' findings of fact in the case and we may say at once that we are inclined to agree with him in his view that the Trust--Deed itself has a strong 'flavour' of 'Sanatan Dharma' or orthodox Hinduism about it; that at any rate two of the Plaintiffs--Narayanchari and Prabodh Chandra Kavyatirtha--are, or they may well be, Brahmans and 'Sanatan Dharma Hindus' and that all of them may for the present purpose be assumed to be residents of Benares itself. It must, also, be accepted as a fact that no Temple has ever been built as provided for by the Trust Deed. These facts in relation to the status of two of the Plaintiffs we are prepared in the abstract for the moment to accept, though they can scarcely be said to be established by any very convincing evidence. 7. It must, also, be accepted as a fact that no Temple has ever been built as provided for by the Trust Deed. These facts in relation to the status of two of the Plaintiffs we are prepared in the abstract for the moment to accept, though they can scarcely be said to be established by any very convincing evidence. 7. The outstanding feature, however, of the whole case, so far as the preliminary issue is concerned, is that no single one of the Plaintiffs chose to give any evidence at the trial of any sort or kind, nor so far as we can gather, ever troubled to attend the Court, On the other hand, the only evidence given on behalf of the Plaintiffs was that of a certain person ca led Manohar Lal Bhatnagar, who was at once time the Secretary and later a Director, of the Bharat Dharma Syndicate Ltd. and at all times the right hand man of Gayananand, the first Defendant and Appellant. This gentleman has given a little evidence about what he understands to be the religious views of the Plaintiffs, or of two of them, but, though we are for the present purpose accepting it, it cannot by any means be thought either satisfactory or convincing. The position, therefore, is this. The suit is started by four Hindu Brahman residents of Benares. We know nothing at ail of them except that they are, or may be, Brahmans and believe, or may believe, in the Sanatan Dharma. None of them has come forward in his own suit to say whether he has the least real interest in its result, in the welfare of the trust or, indeed, in any sincere sense, in the Hindu religion itself. We observe that two of the Plaintiffs have been described as 'prohits', but, so far as the evidence goes, there is no proof that they realy are, nor, if they are, that they are sincerely interested in this trust. Whether they have any connection with any other 'religious or charitable institution in Benares or elsewhere, we have no knowledge. In short we know nothing of them. On the face of the pleadings, the interest of the Plaintiffs was directly challenged. Whether they have any connection with any other 'religious or charitable institution in Benares or elsewhere, we have no knowledge. In short we know nothing of them. On the face of the pleadings, the interest of the Plaintiffs was directly challenged. We think that, in such circumstances, it is little short of astonishing that no single one of the Plaintiffs should have stepped into the witness box to say that he and his co-Plaintiffs had any real 'interest' in this suit at all. So far as they are concerned, it was a vital and direct issue-indeed, it was a condition precedent to the validity of the very institution of their suit and yet not one of them appears to say that he is interested We are left with the meagre evidence of one solitary witness, who himself is a man who, from his very intimate connection with the commercial and financial aspect of this case, may well have had good reasons, wholly unconnected with the Hindu religion, for wishing to find four men of straw to fill the role of Plaintiffs in the suit. And the suggestion has been freely made that the real motive of these proceedings is to forestall the reconstruction scheme which is now on foot in the winding-up. Even when that evidence is given-and accepted-it amounts to no more than that the Plaintiffs are Hindu residents of Benares, Brahmans and possibly (though not certainly), followers of the Sanatan Dharma. Of their history, or status, we know nothing. Of any 'interest' which is even remotely 'actual' or 'real', as opposed to the mere abstract interest of any Hindu in Hindu institution, there is no word of evidence at all. 8. That then is the position we have to deal with and it is necessary that we should examine it in the light of the law by which the Courts in India have construed the word 'interest' in Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure. But we may say at once that we think that it would be certainly not less dangerous in this than in many other class of cases to try to apply the conclusions of decided cases to the particular facts of others and to overlook that each case must be considered with reference primarily to its own. But we may say at once that we think that it would be certainly not less dangerous in this than in many other class of cases to try to apply the conclusions of decided cases to the particular facts of others and to overlook that each case must be considered with reference primarily to its own. We think that it may well be that the nature of the 'qualifying' interest may vary widely with the character of the trust itself. Indeed, if the trust itself is dear, precise and narrow, it may well be that an 'interest' would, in order to qualify a Plaintiff, have to be precise and clear cut too or, perhaps, in other trusts of a more vague and general kind, the qualifying interest might itself be less definite. But it is useful, nevertheless, to observe from decided cases what principles have from time to time been applied to the question. We think that, on the whole, it can be said that, in this as well in other Courts, the more widely held view is that something more than a mere abstract and sentimental interest is required. Whether and to what extent, the interest must be 'actual' is, perhaps, a matter of more doubt and may, as we have suggested, vary in individual cases. 9. This question was discussed by five Judges altogether of the Madras High Court in T.R. Ramachandra lyer v. Parameswaran Munbu (1918) 42 Mad. 360 : AIR 1919 Mad. 384 and in the result two of the Judges (Mr. Justice Abdur Rahim and Mr. Justice Sastri) took what we may describe as the abstract view', while three of the Judges (Sir John Wallis, Mr. Justice Oldfield and Mr. Justice Coutts Trotter) favour the view to take the words of Sir John Wallis: That interest in the provision--i.e., the provision of Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure--if not to be altogether illusory, must arise from some special relation in which the Plaintiff stands to the endowment in question as compared to the whole body of religious community throughout India; in other words, he must be in position to derive some benefit from the trust in respect of which the suit is filed.... 10. 10. This case was one in which one of the Plaintiffs was a lawyer of Madras who was also a member of society which interested itself in the management of temples in southern India. The actual temple in question was at Tellicherry and the only connection with Tellicherry which the Plaintiff had had was that he had once or twice held a brief there and had on those occasions casually visited the temple. The Plaintiff was, of course, himself a devout Hindu. This circumstance, however, did not present the majority of the Madras Judges from thinking that he had no real 'interest' in the temple in the sense of an 'interest' which was substantial and not merely sentimental remote or illusory. Mr. Justice Oldfield in his judgment observed : On the other hand, no good reason has been shown against the interpretation of the word 'interest' in the section in the manner in which it is ordinarily interpreted in other legal connexions and in which I shall interpret it is an interest which is substantial and not sentimental or remote.... 11. Mr. Justice Coutts Trotter says: ...I am content to say that the task is impossible, that the most that can be done, or attempted to be done, is to say that the interest required by the statute to reside in the relator must be, in the words of Lord Eldon, Corporation of Luslow v. Greenhouse and Aur. (1827) Bligh's N.S. 17, 'clear' or, in the words of the learned Chief Justice in this case 'a present and substantial and not a remote and fictitious, of purely illusory interest', or, in the words of the learned Judges in Mohiuddin v. Sayiduddin, ILR (1893) Cal 810 at p. 817, 'an existing interest and not a mere contingency.... 12. It is true that in this particular case there was a substantial cleavage of opinion among the Judges and that the other two Judges held the broader view that, in as much as it was the right of any Hindu to worship at any Hindu temple in the world, his 'interest' in the welfare of the establishments of the Hindu religion in general could not be confined to a case in which he himself was directly connected with a particular temple in the sense that he had made, or was likely to have occasions to make, some special use of it for worship. That is the "abstract view" and is the view that the natural concern of any Hindu for the welfare of his religion and the institutions connected with it is sufficient to satisfy the definition of the word 'interest' as contained in Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The case contained a considerable discussion of the earlier history of Section 92 of the Code and in particular, of the effect of the disappearance of the word 'direct' as qualification of the word 'interest' from the Code of 1877 in consequence of its replacement by the Code of 1883. We do not think any useful purpose would now be served by our discussing this again or by dealing with the numerous earlier authorities which have been exhaustively reviewed in this case in the Madras High Court. We think, however, that it is worth our pointing out in relation to the case before us that this Madras case was, on its facts, a good deal stronger than ours The Plaintiff in that case did at least have some colour of interest in the establishment in relation to which he had brought the suit and he had gone into the witness box himself not only to establish that interest but to assert his own concern in particular for the welfare of the temple and for the credit of the Hindu religion in general. Had the three Judges of the Madras High Court been able to take the opposite view, there would at least have been this to say, that they there had before them a Plaintiff who himself had maintained in the proceedings that he was a person with an 'actual' and not merely an abstract and unproved personal concern in the result of his suit. In our case, we have not even that. We have merely four Plaintiffs of whom we know practically nothing who, even if they are Brahmans of Benares, have shown so little concern with the suit to which they have given their names that they have not even cared to come to the Court to show what, if any, their 'interest' is nor, indeed, whether they really have one, whether as Hindus in the abstract or at all. Moreover, the case is one in which from the beginning the Plaintiffs' bona fides, so far as this suit is concerned, has been challenged and there is at least some ground for suggesting that they may be serving the interest of others, rather than exhibiting a genuine concern for the public purposes which they are nominally championing. 13. The whole question turns on the meaning of the word 'interest'. It may well be that, as the majority of the Judges in the Madras High Court appear to think, the necessary 'interest' must be something more than a merely 'sentimental' or 'abstract' one. Or it may be, as the other Judges have thought, that the abstract interest of a Hindu in his own religious institutions is itself sufficient to support a suit without showing anything more. We think, however, that, without being compelled to decide between these two points of view, there is yet another class of case in which the Plaintiffs fail to establish that they have an 'interest' of any sort or kind, even though they do happen to be local Hindus. Even an abstract interest is in a sense an 'actual' interest. It is a genuine interest, even though in the abstract. It proceeds from a i real concern for their own faith. But in a case in which the Plaintiffs, notwithstanding that they are j local Hindus and Brahnans, do not even trouble to assert that they have an 'interest' of any kind-concrete or abstract we find it very difficult to hold that they can maintain a suit u/s 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure. 14. We feel, therefore, that it is not necessary for us in this case actually to choose between the majority and minority views in the Madras case of T.R. Ramachandra Aiyar v. Parameswaran Unni (1918) 42 Mad. 360 : AIR 1919 Mad. 384 (ubi supra), because in our view the present case can be distinguished from it. We are aware that the majority view in this case has not been universally accepted in India (see, for instance, in AIR 1925 189 (Lahore) and that many other cases have been readily--and not always, we think, unwillingly--distinguished on the facts. 384 (ubi supra), because in our view the present case can be distinguished from it. We are aware that the majority view in this case has not been universally accepted in India (see, for instance, in AIR 1925 189 (Lahore) and that many other cases have been readily--and not always, we think, unwillingly--distinguished on the facts. We think it very necessary in such cases as these to bear in mind the particular facts of the case actually before the Court and in the present one before us we think it turns less upon the question whether the Plaintiffs' 'interest' is substantial or abstract, than upon whether it exists at all even in the abstract. If we may, however, venture a comment of our own it would be that, in a proper case, we should find, on general principles of the exercise in the public interest of the Court's Chancery jurisdiction over charities, much to attract us in the minority view of the Madras High Court. 15. To discuss all the authorities which we have read upon this matter would be, we think, unnecessarily to confuse this judgment. But we think it necessary to mention one more Madras case in the Privy Council. In Vaidyanatha Ayyar v. Swaminatha Ayyar (1924) 47 Mad 884 : AIR 1924 P.C. 221 (2) the Judicial Committee had before it and held to be maintainable a suit started u/s 92 of the CPC by a person who was a descendant of the founder, but, apparently had no other interest. Their Lordships referred to Sir John Wallis's judgment in T.R. Ramachandra Aiyar v. Parameswaran Unni (1918) 42 Mad. 360 : AIR 1919 Mad. 384, with approval and observed: ...They agree with Sir John Wallis that to hold that the bare possibility, however remote, that a Hindu might desire to resort to a particular temple, gives him an interest in the trust, appears to defeat the object with which the legislature inserted these words in the section.... and they proceed to point out that that object is as much to protect the managers themselves of charities as the public interest. and they proceed to point out that that object is as much to protect the managers themselves of charities as the public interest. In a case in which, as in the one before us, not merely is ' interest ' not proved in the sense of any substantial interest, but no ' interest ' at all is proved, even an abstract one, we think that what the Board has said above applied with double force. 16. In the result, therefore, in the present case we have not found it necessary to decide whether, if the Plaintiffs had proved even an "actual abstract interest", it would in the particular circumstances have been sufficient to support the suit. We are content to say that the Plaintiffs have not proved an 'interest' of any kind. We think that even an 'abstract' interest (assuming that it could in some circumstances support a suit) would have to be an actual interest i.e. an abstract interest which the Plaintiffs really have. And where, as here, the Plaintiffs themselves do not even trouble to say whether they have any concern at all in the suit they sponsor and there are in fact other unusual features such as the daily presence in Court and assistance given to counsel appearing in the suit by one Harish Chandra Varma, we can come to no other conclusion but that the qualification required by Section 92 of the Act is not satisfied. Nor do we think that the provision of the Trust Deed itself to which the Judge has drawn our attention advances their case at all, because even under that it would be necessary for the Plaintiffs interest to be--and to be proved to be--an actual one. 17. But, as we have already said, this case is an unusual one and there are many most disturbing features about, it, since the written statement itself contains admissions of facts which prima facie amount to gross breach of trust. Before allowing this appeal upon a point which is primarily technical, we had thought it right to ask the Advocate General, as ' amicus curiae ' to appear before us and to ascertain his view as the guardian of the public interest and to afford him such opportunity, if any, as he might desire to take and is open to him, to intervene in the proceedings. 18. 18. The learned Advocate General has now appeared before us after taking instructions from the Local Government. He has, of course, supported the arguments of Learned Counsel for the Respondents as to the maintainability of the suit. But, as we have shown above, we are, clearly of opinion that the view taken by the lower Court cannot be sustained. 19. The next question which arose was whether the learned Advocate General was prepared to ask us to implead him as a co-Plaintiff even at this late stage of the case. It is true that in one Madras case, Ambalavana Panda a Sannaidhi v. The Advocate General of Madras (1919) 43 Mad. 707 : AIR 1920 Mad. 133, the High Court did order the trial Court in a similar suit to impaled the Advocate General when the suit was likely to fail on the ground of absence of interest of those Plaintiffs who had obtained the sanction of the Advocate General u/s 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It is true also that in many cases it is open to an appellate Court to apply in appeal the rules of the CPC which are applicable to the trial of original suits. But on a consideration of the terms of Rule 8 of Order 1 we cannot but agree with the learned Advocate General that it is very doubtful whether he could ask as to implead him at this stage and could therefore ask us for time to enable him to ask the Government to authorise him to move this Court for that purpose. Nor do we think that it would be proper to remand the case to the court below to enable it to take the statements of the Plaintiffs as witnesses or to take such evidence ourselves. That would be to contravene the principle that further evidence is not to be admitted in appeal merely to enable the Plaintiffs to fill up a lacuna in their case. In these circumstances, with some reluctance, in view of the disturbing features to which we have alluded earlier, we are of opinion that it is not possible at this late stage for any steps to be taken to remedy the technical defects which are apparent in the case. In these circumstances, with some reluctance, in view of the disturbing features to which we have alluded earlier, we are of opinion that it is not possible at this late stage for any steps to be taken to remedy the technical defects which are apparent in the case. In our view, the Plaintiffs are not persons who have shown that they had such an interest as would enable them to maintain this suit. The learned Judge has, in our judgment, wrongly held that the Plaintiffs have such an interest in the Mahamaya Trust as would entitle them to maintain the present suit. The Plaintiffs' suit must therefore tail. 20. We accordingly allow this appeal, set aside the decree of the lower Court and order that the Plaintiffs' suit be dismissed with costs of both courts.