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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 135 of 1962. Appeal from the judgment and order dated April 30, 1958, of the Orissa High Court in O.J.C. No. 321 of 1955. M. C. Setalvad, Sarjoo Prasad and A. D. Mathur, for the appellant.

S. V. Gupta, Additional Solicitor-General, M. S. K. Sastri and R. N. Sachthey, for the respondent.

March 5, 1964. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by- WANCHOO, J.--This appeal on a certificate granted by the Orissa High Court raises the question of the constitu- tionality of the Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1954, No. 11 of 1955, (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The challenge to the Act was made by the father of the present appellant by a writ petition filed in the High Court of Orissa. The appellant was substituted for his father on the death of the latter while the writ petition was pending in the High Court. The case put forward in the petition firstly was that the Shri Jagannath Temple (hereinafter referred to as the Temple) was the private property of the petitioner, Raja of Puri, and the Act, which deprived the appellant of his property was unconstitutional in view of Art. 19 of the Constitution. In the alternative it was submitted that the appellant had the sole right of superintendence and management of the Temple and that that right could not be taken away without payment of compensation, and the Act inasmuch as it took away that right without any compensation was hit by Art. 31 of the Constitution. It was further pleaded that the right of superintendence was property within the meaning of Art. 19 (1) (f) and inasmuch as the appellant had been deprived of that property by the Act, it was an unreasonable provision which was not L/P(D)1SCI-2 ...

The petition was opposed on behalf of the State and it was urged that the Temple was not the private property of the appellant. The case of the State was that it was a public temple and the State always had the right to see that it was properly administered. Before the British conquered Orissa in 1803, the Temple had for a long time been managed by Muslim Rulers directly, though through Hindu employees. After 1803, the Temple began to be managed directly by the British Government, though by Regulation IV of 1809 the management was made over to the Raja of Khurda (who is now known as the Raja of Puri), who was appointed as hereditary superintendent in view of his family's connection in the past with the Temple. Even so, whenever there was mismanagement in the Temple during the course of the last century and a half, the Government always intervened and many a time administered the secular affairs of the Temple directly through one of its officers in whose favour the then Raja was made to execute a power of attorney divesting himself completely of all powers of management. The case of the State further was that in view of the reported mismanagement of the Temple, the State legislature passed the Puri Shri Jagannath Temple (Administration) Act, (No. XIV of 1952) for the appointment of a Special Officer for the preparation of a record pertaining to the rights and duties of different sevaks and pujaris and such other persons connected with the seva, puja or management of the Temple and its endowments in order to put the administration of the Temple on a suitable basis. A Special Officer was accordingly appointed who submitted his report on March 15, 1954, which disclosed serious mismanagement of the affairs of the Temple and in consequence the Act was passed in 1955. The State contended that the Act was perfectly valid and constitutional and did not offend any constitutional provision.

This review of the provisions of the Act shows that broadly speaking the Act provides for the management of the secular affairs of the Temple and does not interfere, with the religious affairs thereof, which have to be performed according to the record of rights prepared under the Act of 1952 and where there is no such record of rights in accordance with custom and usage obtaining in the Temple. It is in this background that we have to consider the attack on the constitutionality of the Act. We may first dispose of the attack based on Art. 14. It is urged that inasmuch as this special Act has been passed for this Temple and the general Act, namely, the Orissa Hindu Religious Endowments Act No. 11 of 1952 no longer applies to this Temple, there has been discrimination inasmuch as the Temple has been singled out for special treatment as compared to other temples in the State of Orissa. There is no doubt that the Act is in many respects different from Act 11 of 1952 and substitutes the committee for the Raja of Puri for the purpose of management of the Temple, and there would prima facie be discrimination unless it can be shown that the Temple stands in a class by itself and required special treatment. As to that the affidavit on behalf of the State Government is that the Temple is a unique institution in the State of Orissa and is in a class by itself and that there is no comparison between the Temple and other temples in the State. The averment on behalf of the State is that the Temple has been treated as a special object throughout the centuries because of its unique importance and that there is no other temple which occupies the unique place which this Temple occupies in the whole of India. Also there is no other temple in Orissa with such vast assets or which attracts such a large number of pilgrims which pour into it from the whole of India. It is also averred that it is absolutely incorrect that there are other temples in Orissa which are equal to it from the standpoint of assets or from the standpoint of their all-India character or from the standpoint of the complicated nature of nitis and sevapuja affecting the lives, religious susceptibilities and senti- ments of millions of people spread all over India. There can be no doubt after this averment on behalf of the State that the Temple occupies a unique position in the State of Orissa and is a temple of national importance and no other temple in that State can compare with it stands in a class by itself and considering the fact that it attracts pilgrims from all over India in large numbers it must be a subject of special consideration by the State Government. In reply to these averments on behalf of the State, all that the appellant stated in his rejoinder was that these averments were not admitted. There was no denial of the special importance of the Temple as averred on behalf of the State and we have no doubt therefore that this Temple stands in a class by itself in the State of Orissa and therefore requires special treatment. We may in this connection refer to the decision of the Court in Tilkayat Shri Govindlalji v. State of Rajasthan(1) where in relation to the temple at Nathdwara with respect to which a special Act had been passed by the State of Rajasthan, this Court observed that "a law may be constitutional even though it relates to a single individual if, on account of some special circumstances or reasons applicable to him and not applicable to others, that single individual may be treated as a class by himself". The attack under Art. 14 on the constitutionality of the law with respect to the temple at Nathdwara was repelled on the ground that the temple had a, unique position amongst the Hindu Shrines in the State of Rajasthan and no temple could be regarded as comparable with it. The same reasons in our opinion apply to the Temple in the present case and the Act cannot be struck down under Art. 14 because the Temple in the present case holds a unique position amongst the Hindu temples in the State of Orissa and no other temple can be regarded as comparable with it.

and serious irregularities thereafter the Government had to intervene on various occasions in the past. Finally the preamble says that the administration under the superintendent has further deteriorated and a situation has arisen rendering it expedient to reorganise the scheme of management of the affairs of the Temple and its properties and provide better administration and governance therefor in supersession of all previous laws, regulations and arrangements, having regard to the ancient customs and usages and the unique and traditional nitis and rituals contained in the record of rights prepared under the 1952 Act. So for all these reasons the appellant was removed from the sole superintendence of the Temple and a committee was appointed by s. 6 of the Act for its management. These statements in the preamble are not seriously in dispute as will be clear from the reports by G. Grome dated June 10, 1905 and by the Special Officer appointed under the 1952 Act dated March 15, 1954 and the correspondence which passed from time to time between the officers of the Government and the predecessors of the appellant. In these circumstances if the secular management of the Temple was taken away from the sole control of the appellant and vested in a committee of which he still remains the chairman, it cannot be said that the provisions contained in the Act for that purpose are hit either by Art. 31(2) or by Art. 19(f). There is in our opinion a complete parallel between the provisions of the Act and the Act relating to the temple at Nathdwara in Rajasthan, which came up for consideration before this Court in Tilkayat Govindlalji's case(1). If anything, the case of the appellant is weaker than that of Shri Govindlalji, for the appellant in the present case was conferred with the power of superintendence by Regulation IV of 1809 after the British conquered Orissa. Whatever may have been his connection prior to 1809 with the Temple, the history of the Temple shows that the Muslim Rulers had removed him and were carrying on the management of the Temple directly through Hindu officers appointed by them. The right of management was conferred on the appellant's ancestor after the British conquest by virtue of the Regulation of 1809 and other laws passed thereafter. All that the Act has done is to replace his sole right of management by appointing a, committee of which he is the chairman. Further there can be in the circumstances no question of the application of Art. 31(2) in the present case. In the first place the right of superintendence is not property in this case for it carried no beneficial enjoyment of any property with it, and in the second case, that right has not been acquired by the State which Art. 31(2) requires. As was pointed out in Tilkayat Govindlalji's case.(1), all that has happened in the present case is that the sole right of the appellant to (1) 1964 1 S.C.R. 561.