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Even assuming without conceding that the institutions were Udasi institutions, it is submitted that that right having been lost even prior to the constitution by virtue of the Firmans of the Maharaja of Patiala no relief can be claimed nor the provisions of the Act can be challenged as being unconstitutional. Several other arguments were advanced which will be dealt with hereafter.

The main question in these appeals is whether the appellants have the right to challenge the provisions of the Act by and under which a Gurdwara or an institution is declared or assumed to be a Sikh Gurdwara. The full Bench of the Punjab & Harayana High Court in its detailed judgment has considered several aspects in the light of the contentions advanced before it which contentions have been repeated before us. Before we examine the impugned provisions, it is necessary to state that in order to remedy a situation arising out of certain historical landmarks of Sikh struggle to retain their shrines which had come into the possession of persons subscribing to non-Sikh faiths. the Act was passed. The Sikhs believe in the ten Gurus--the last of whom was Guru Gobind Singh. They further believe that there is no other Guru after Guru Gobind Singh who enjoined on his follower,,; that after him they,.-should consider Guru Granth Sahib as the Guru. They do not subscribe to idol worship and polytheism, nor do they have any Samadhi in their shrines. The teaching of Sikhs was against asceticism. They believe in Guru Granth Sahib, which is a Rosary of sacred poems, exhortations, etc. During the time of the Sikh Gurus, the Gurdwaras were under their direct supervision and control or under their Masends or missionary agents. After the death of Guru Gobind Singh the Panth is recognised as the corporate representative or the Guru on earth and thereafter they were managed by the Panth through their Granthis. and other sewadars who were under direct supervision of the local Sangat or congregation. During Mahant raja Ranjit Singh's time Sikhism became the religion of the State and large estates and Jagirs were granted to the Gurdwaras apart from the Jagirs which had been earlier granted during the Mugal period The position of the Gurdwaras changed during British regime. The Mahants who were in charge of the Sikh Gurdwaras could either be a Sikh Mahant or Udasi Mahant. It may here be stated that the Udasis were not Sikhs. While the teachings of Sikhs were against asceticism and were opposed to Hindu rites, the Udasis though "using the Same sacred writings as the Sikhs, kept up much more of the old Hindu practices followed asceticism, were given to the veneration of Samadhis or Tombs and continue the Hindu rites concerning birth, marriage and Shradh." (See Hem Singh v. Basant Das(1) Though there was no reconciliation between the Sikhs and Udasis, it did not matter if the Mahant of a Sikh Gurdwara was not a Sikh Mahant because the Panth or Sangat exercised control over the Gurdwaras. After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh when the power of the Sikhs had waned and they were disorganised and dejected, the non-Sikh Mahants asserted their control and denied to the Panth or the Sangat rights over those Gurdwaras. After the Sikhs had recovered, from their frustration caused by the, defeat of the Sikh Rajas they began to assert their rights by filing suits and embarking on litigation for the recovery of their holy shrines.

lation. Six days thereafter i.e. on November 8, 1946 the Maharaja issued another Firman appointing an Interim Committee for the management of the Sikh Gurdwaras in the State and nominated members thereof. In that Firman he designated the Committee as an "Interim Gurdwara Board", which was directed to assume the functions till then performed by the Deodhi Department and to exercise the powers vested in the Sardar Sahib Deodhi Mualla. It was also provided that the Interim Gurdwara Board shall elect a Vice-President and Secretary out of the members and its decisions will be given effect to by majority of votes. The President or Chairman will have a casting vote in case of a. tie. Eight members were to form the quorum for a meeting. On December 23, 1946, pursuant to the Firman dated November 8, 1946 a notification was issued by Deodhi Mualla Department, Patiala, for the information of the general pub- lic that the management of the Sikh Gurdwaras specified therein had been handed over- to the Interim Gurdwara Board, Patiala. In that list is mentioned at item 24 Gurdwara at Pinjore in the memory of Padhshahi Pehli. This Board continued to function even after the Amending Act came into force. Section 148-C of the Act provides thus :

It is strenuously contended by the Learned Advocate for the appellant that the appellant cannot be non-suited as there were no pleadings, no allegation that the Gurdwara was declared a Sikh Gurdwara or that its management and possession was vested in the Interim Gurdwara Board or that the appellant was dispossessed at any time; nor were these allegations canvassed by the appellant in the Writ petition during its hearing before the High Court nor has the High Court dealt, with this aspect; nor were any accounts required to be produced nor was the Mahant ever appointed as a servant of the Gurdwara. He further contended that the Firman does not affect the status of the Gurdwara as it was not only of a temporary nature but it specifically stated that it will be in force till a new law was made. In our view these contentions have no force and must be rejected. The allegation of the appellant in his Writ petition paragraph-9(d) was that the State Government when preparing the two schedules did not make any enquiry, never served any notice on the appellant asking him to explain as to whether it was an Udasi institution or a Sikh Gurdwara, and arbitrarily included Gurdwara Panjaur sahib, an Udasi institution, in Sch. 1 which is against the principles of natural justice. In reply thereto in paragraph 9(d) res- pondents 1 and 3 denied these allegations and averred that the Institution was a Sikh Gurdwara and was under the management of the Interim Gurdwara Board in the erstwhile Pepsu territory. Respondent 2 also while admitting that the appellant was in possession of the Gurdwara and the property attached therewith said that possession was on behalf of the said Gurdwara. Respondent 2 further, while emphatically denying that the Gurdwara was an Udasi institution, asserted that the institution was a Sikh Gurdwara. Annexure A-I was relied upon by the appellant to show, that nothing had, been stated therein that the Gurdwara was under the management of the Interim Gurdwara Board. This annexure related to an entry in last Jamabandi for the, year 1954-55 in which Column I showed the number of the Khata and in the second column name of the owner was described as "Gurdwara Sahib Panjore Malik Be ehatman, Mahant Lachhman Das Chela Mahant Isher Dass caste Udasi resident of village Panjore, Mohtmim." In the third column the name of the cultivator was given. There is nothing in this entry which shows that the Gurdwara was an Udasi Gurdwara or the Lachhman Dass was not working under the management of the Interim Gurdwara Board. The words 'Be ehetmam and Mohtmim' clearly show that he was only managing it. This is not inconsistent with the allegations that many of the Sikh Gurdwaras were managed by Udasis nor is it inconsistent with the fact that under the Firmans the Interim Gurdwara Board which was in management of the Gurdwara could get the affairs of the Gurdwara looked after by others under their supervision. For this reason perhaps originally the vires of the provisions of the Act was not specifically agitated in the original petition. It was only subsequently that an attempt was made to have amended. Be that. as it may it cannot be said that the question of the management of the impugned Gurdwaras was not raised. In paragraph 2 of the affidavit of Kehar Singh Mann the deponent stated that the Sikh Gurdwaras in the State of Pepsu fell into three categories-(1) Gurdwaras owned and managed by the Government; (2) Gurdwaras which were managed by the the Interim Gurdwara Board established by the Ruler of the erstwhile, State of Patiala by order of the Ijlas-i- khas December, 1946; and (3) Gurdwaras which were privately managed by the Local Committees. The Government by notification No. 48 Gurdwaras dated February 1, 1957, constituted a committee consisting of M.L.As and M.L.Cs to submit its report for suitable amendments being made in the Act covering the Gurdwaras situated in Pepsu and after obtaining the relevant data the Committee submitted its report on September 14, 1957 which is R-1 a copy of which was attached to the affidavit of Kehar Singh Mann. These recommendations of the Committee were accepted and the Amending Act was introduced. The full Bench in its judgment referred to the basis on which certain historical Sikh Gurdwaras of erstwhile Pepsu area were included in Sch. 1 and others not so included. According to the Advisory Committee's report;

tion of his fundamental rights. Even if the appellant continued to be in possession he has. not acquired a right of management when once that right was vested in, another body. That Firman of an erstwhile Ruler of a Princely State was law and continued to be law till repealed or substituted by a competent Legislature has been concluded by the decisions of this Court in Ameerunnissa Begum and others v. Mahaboob Begum and Others,(1) and State of Rajasthan and Others v. Shri Sajjanlal Panjawat and others.(2) In view of the legal position an attempt was made to describe the Firman of the Maharaja of Patiala referred to above as an administrative order not having the force of law. With this submission we are unable to agree A glance at the Firman leaves no manner of doubt that it vested the management and possession of the Gurdwaras in a body created by it, with a Constitution and Membership quorum etc. It could only be administrative if the Gurdwaras in respect of which the management was vested were already vested in the State but that will be fatal to the case of the appellants. The very fact that pending a comprehensive law the Maharaja was issuing the Firman itself shows that it is a law. The pleadings clearly raised the question of the locus standi of the appellant to assert that the Gurdwara was not a Sikh Gurdwara and it was clearly asserted that the possession of the appellant was on behalf of the said Gurdwara which is not inconsistent with the fact that the possession and management of it was vested in the Interim Gurdwara Board. It was contended by the learned Advocate for the appellant that if the pre-Constitution law takes away rights for an interim period then the rights existed after the interim period and is subject to the Constitution. But even if this proposition is admitted, and it is not necessary to express our view, the assumption on which it is based is invalid. No doubt the Maharaja of Patiala envisaged a comprehensive law to replace his Firmans but by that time the State of Patiala was merged and the law embodied by the Firmans which was continued to be the law after the merger was replaced by the Amending Act which provided for the interim Gurdwara Board being in possession and management during the transition period. In Sri Jagadguru Kari Basava Rajendraswami of Gavimutt v. Commissioner of Hindu Religious Charitable Endowments, Hyderabad(3) scheme had been framed before the Constitution and s. 103(d)of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act,1951, properly construed, gave an operative force to the earlier schemes framed under the Madras Act 2 of 1973 as though they' were framed under the Act 19 of 1951. It was not intended by this section that those schemes must be examined and reframed in the light of the relevant provisions of the Act. In these circumstances it was held that, although the scheme in question had not been completely implemented before the Constitution, that was no ground for examining its provision in the light of Art. 19 of the Constitution. The fundamental rights conferred by the Constitution are not retrospective in operation and the observations made. by this Court in Seth Shanti Sarup v. Union of India(4) were not applicable to that case.