1. Under section 18 of act xx of 1863 the District Judge gave sanction to two individuals to sue for the removal of the respondents who are the moktessors of the Shri Anantha Padmanabha Temple of Perdur for misfeasance, breach of trust or neglect of duty.
2. Although the sanction was given jointly to both, only one of the individuals took action thereon and sued the trustees.
3. When the suit came on for trial before the same Judge who give the original sanction, a preliminary objection was taken that the suit was bad because the joint sanction-holder had not joined in the suit. The Judge upheld this objection and dismissed the suit holding that the plaintiff could not prosecute it alone. He further expressed a doubt as to the plaintiff's bond fides. The question before us therefore is whether one man should be allowed to sue under section 14 of this act upon the strength of a sanction given to two men. Such sanctions are a condition precedent to the exorcise of the right of suit Venkateswara, In re (1887) I.L.R., 10 Mad., 98], and it is open in the Court to amend the order of sanction at any time [Srinivasa v. Vankata (1888) I.L.R., 11 Mad., 148], but the plaintiff seems to have made no attempt to move the Court to alter the sanction by getting it granted in his name only.
4. In Mahomed Athar v. Ramjan Khan (1907) I.LR., 34 Calc. 587, this point was considered and the learned Judges held that when sanction had been granted to three persons and two of them withdrew and one of the three joining with him two new persons brought a suit under Section 24 of the Act the suit was not defective by reason of two of the three plaintiffs being persona to whom leave to sue had not been accorded. There no objection was taken at the trial and no issue framed as to the maintainability of the suit.
5. It was observed by the High Court that as the same Judge who gave the leave under Section 8 also entertained the suit, he must have tacitly given permission to the two new men to become plaintiffs along with Ramjan Khan,
6. So here as Mr, Harding granted sanction to two petitions in his order of January 8th, 1906, and subsequently on March 1st, 1910, he himself dismissed the plaintiff's suit because the Shivalli Brahman had not been joined as a party, and at the same time, doubted the bond fides of the plaintiff, it may be taken that he refused to allow the plaintiff to sue singly.
7. Such sanctions for instituting suits against trustees have to be construed strictly without enlarging their scope [Sayad Hussein Miyan v. Collector of Kaira (1897) I.L.R., 21 Bom., 257] the object of requiring sanction being to protect managers from vexatious suits. The words in Section 14 of the Act
"any person or persons interested in any mosque, etc., may without joining as plaintiff with any of the other persons interested therein, sun before the Civil Court the trustee, manager, etc.,"seem to be enabling words intended to give individuals a right to sue individually without the necessity of all the worshippers of the particular temple or religious institution joining as plaintiffs. With all respect to the learned Judges who decided Mahomed Athar v. Ramjan Khan ( 1907) I.L.R. 34 Calc., 537, we do not consider that those words are intended to refer to the persons who hold the sanctions granted under Section 18.
8. Cases may occur in which it might be inadvisable to grant sanction to a particular individual either on account of his character, personal motives, or his solvency, and yet if he joined with some one whose very name would be a guarantee against the suit being improperly conducted, a Court would he justified in granting a joint sanction where it would have refused leave to the single applicant.
9. We are therefore of opinion that this suit was rightly dismissed.
10. The appeal is dismissed with costs.
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