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2022 DIGILAW 1243 (CAL)

Balaram Das v. Guru Charan Biswas

2022-08-30

SHEKHAR B.SARAF

body2022
JUDGMENT Shekhar B. Saraf, J. - By an order dated March 10, 2022 in G.A. 30 of 2021, this Court had appointed Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, Former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court as the Chairman cum Special Officer of the Dakhineswar Kali Temple and Debottar Estate, Kolkata wherein he was directed to hold elections for constituting the new Board of Trustees of the said Temple and Estate. In pursuant to this order, a report was submitted by him on June 02, 2022, and the same is pending for approval before this Court. 2. Subsequently, the parties have filed several interlocutory applications seeking various directions from the Court. 3. First things first - the applicants in G.A No. 31/2022, G.A. No. 32/2022 and G.A. No. 33/2022 have sought modification or recall of the said order dated March 10, 2022. The applicants contend that the Court was not apprised of the order dated January 22, 2022 in G.A. No. 29 of 2021 leading to suppression of material facts before this Court. However, the said application G.A. 29 of 2021 was dismissed as withdrawn on March 05, 2021, and that order passed in it not only is not in existence any more but also bears no relevance or application as far as the present applications before me are concerned. Further, in the said G.A. 29 of 2021, the Hon'ble Judge did not make any observations and the order therein contained only reflections of the issues raised by the counsels. Therefore in my view, the prayer seeking modification or recall of order dated March 10, 2022 ought to be rejected. 4. The counsel also contends that the order dated March 10, 2022 of this Court was passed in a dead suit since the original parties are long dead. In furtherance of his argument, the counsel cited two judgments, the first one being the judgment of this Court in Biswanath Pal -v- Satya Prakash Chandra reported in (2014) 4 ICC 585 and other one being the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Gurnam Singh (D) Thr. Lrs. -v- Gurbachan Kaur(D) by Lrs. reported in (2017) 13 SCC 414 . The relevant portion of the Supreme Court judgment is extracted below - '18. Lrs. -v- Gurbachan Kaur(D) by Lrs. reported in (2017) 13 SCC 414 . The relevant portion of the Supreme Court judgment is extracted below - '18. On the death of a party to the appeal, if no application is made by the party concerned to the appeal or by the legal representatives of the deceased on whom the right to sue has devolved for substitution of their names in place of the deceased party within 90 days from the date of death of the party, such appeal abates automatically on expiry of 90 days from the date of death of the party. In other words, on the 91st day, there is no appeal pending before the Court. It is 'dismissed as abated'. 5. This Court agrees that the parties to the original appeal might be dead unless they're over 150 years old and a world record for the oldest human alive is being broken. But the material facts of the judgments cited by the counsel starkly differ from the present one at hand. This isn't an ordinary suit but rather an administrative one under the control of this Court. When it comes to this administrative suit, the Court is at liberty to allow the Trustees/sebaits to apply for the implementation of the Scheme in connection with the administration of Dakhineswar Temple and Debottar Estate. 6. Upon hearing the parties, this Court is of the view that since the order dated March 10, 2022 for which modification/revocation has been sought has already been complied with and even if this Court was to stay/modify that order, none of the parties will achieve anything substantial from such a direction. Moreover, there is no suppression of facts as alleged by the counsel on behalf of the sebaits. Therefore, as far as the application for modification of the order dated March 10, 2022 of this Court goes, the same stands dismissed. 7. As for the other prayers raised in G.A. No. 31 of 2022, G.A. No. 32 of 2022, and G.A. No. 33 of 2022, this Court is not dealing with them on merits as the same has become infructuous on account of the fact that the elections have already been held and that a challenge to the same has been raised in G.A. No. 34 of 2022. This Court will deal with these issues when it takes up G.A. No. 30 of 2021 for approval of the report of Chairman-cum-Special Officer and the elections conducted in his aegis, and G.A. No. 34 of 2022 regarding the challenge to the elections of the Board of Trustees and the conduct of the Chairman-cum-Special Officer appointed by this Court. 8. In G.A. No. 31 of 2022, G.A. No. 32 of 2022 and G.A. No. 33 of 2022, as far as prayers other than the one regarding modification/recall of the order dated March 10, 2022 of this Court are concerned, I clarify that there are no observations passed by this Court on the merits of those other prayers. 9. For the reasons discussed above, G.A. No. 31 of 2022, G.A. No. 32 of 2022, and G.A. No. 33 of 2022 are disposed of. 10. The parties are at liberty to mention GA No. 30 of 2021 and GA No. 34 of 2022 for inclusion in the list. 11. Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, should be made available to the parties upon compliance with the requisite formalities.