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The settlor administered the trust property for sometime and thereafter thought of effecting by deed inter vivos certain changes in the trust. To enable him to do so he took out an originating summons on the original side of the Calcutta High Court under Chapter XIII of the Original Side Rules of that Court seeking primarily two reliefs viz., (1) to have the Official Trustee, Bengal appointed as the Trustee in his place and (2) to empower him to alter the clause relating to variation of the quantum of interest given to each of the beneficiaries by a deed inter vivos. From the averments made in the application, it is clear that relief was sought under the provisions of the Indian Trusts Act (Central Act 2 of 1882) and the Official Trustees Act (Central Act 2 of 1913). In the body of the petition the settlor definitely prayed for permission to revoke the clause in the trust deed relating to his power to vary the quantum of interest of the beneficiaries by will alone and in, its place authorise him to make that variation "by deed inter vivos and not by will alone". The relevant reliefs asked for in the petition read as follows (1) "that the provisions contained in the Deed of settlement dated the 6th December 1930 whereby the persons therein named were appointed Trustees of the said Trust Estate and whereby power was reserved to petitioner to alter the said quantum of interest by will alone and in no other way be revoked and . . . .

(2) that the petitioner be empowered to alter the said quantum of interest in such manner as he may think proper, by deed inter vivos and not by will alone."

The aforementioned originating summons was taken out on August 20, 1937. The matter came up for hearing before Ramfry J. evidently after service of notices on the respondents on August 25, 1937. On that date the learned Judge passed the following order :

"It is ordered that the provisions contained in the said Deed of Trust whereby the persons therein named were appointed Trustees of the said Trust Estate and whereby power was reserved to the said applicant to alter the quantum of interest of the beneficiaries by ,will and in no other way be and they are hereby revoked and it is further ordered that the said applicant as such settlor as aforesaid be at liberty to alter the said quantum of interest in such manner as he may think proper by deed inter vivos and not by will and it is further ordered that the said applicant the present sole trustee under the said Deed of Trust be and is hereby discharged from further acting as such Trustee and the Official Trustee of Bengal be and is hereby appointed the sole trustee of the said Deed of Trust. And it is further ordered that the stocks and shares and securities (both movable and immovable) now comprised in the Trust Estate... do vest in the said Official Trustee of Bengal as such Trustee as aforesaid."
It was then said that the order in question could have been made by Ramfry, J. in the exercise of his inherent powers as a judge sitting on the original side of the Calcutta High Court. It was argued that a judge sitting on the original side of the High Court of Judicature at Calcutta has all the powers of a Chancery Judge in England as that power has been conferred on him by the Letters Patent granted to that High Court. We shall assume it to be so. We may note that the settlor did not invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the Court nor did the judge purport to exercise that power. But, still, that cannot invalidate the order made if the court had the inherent jurisdiction to make that order. Hence the real question is had he that inherent jurisdiction? Chapter XIII of the Calcutta High Court Rules prescribes what orders can be obtained in an originating summons proceedings. The jurisdiction of the judge acting under that Chapter is a summary jurisdiction. Rule 1 of that Chapter empowers the judge to entertain an application in respect of matters enumerated in clauses (a) to (g) of that rule. Admittedly cls. (a) (b), (f) and (g) are not relevant for our present purpose. Under cl. (c), the court could only decide -about furnishing of any particular accounts by trustees and vouching (where necessary) of such accounts. Under cl. (c) it could direct the trustees to pay into court 'any monies in his hands and under cl. (e) direct him to file an account and vouch the same to do or abstain from doing any particular act in his character as a trustee. The orders under Ch. XIII are made in chambers. As mentioned earlier the proceedings under, that Chapter are summary. proceedings. No rule in that Chapter was brought to our notice under which the ,order in question could have been made. Different questions might have arisen for consideration if an ,application under rule 9 of Chapter XIII had been made requesting the High Court to interpret the original Trust deed in ,a particular manner, Such a plea was not taken in the application filed by the settlor before Ramfry, J. Further it was not the ,case of the appellant either in the High Court or in the courts below or even in this Court that Ramfry, J. merely purported to interpret the original Trust deed whether his interpretation is ,correct or not. Let us now proceed to the question whether the Chancery Court in, England had jurisdiction to pass an order similar to that made by Ramfry, J. This question was elaborately considered by the House of Lords in Chapman and Ors. v. Chapman and Ors.(1). The leading judgment in that case was delivered by Lord Morton of Henryton. In his speech he elaborately considered the -various decisions rendered by the English courts. The broad question that he posed for decision was -whether the court could permit the settlor to alter the terms of a trust and if so in what respect. It was urged before him on behalf of the appellants in that case that the court had jurisdiction to permit the alteration of any of the terms of a trust. Negativing that contention his Lordship observed at p. 456 "Striking instances of cases which negative the existence of the alleged, unlimited jurisdiction are In re Crawshay,(2) In re Morrison(3) (Buckley, J.) and In re Montagu(4) '(Court of Appeal). In the first of these cases North, J. said: 'I should not be administering the trusts created by 'the testator if I consented to this scheme. I should be altering his trusts and substituting something quite outside the will. On the assumption that the scheme would be beneficial to the estate, I cannot decide that I have jurisdiction to authorise it' " In the last mentioned case the Court of Appeal held that it had no jurisdiction to allow the trustees of a settlement to raise money by mortgage of the settled estate and to apply it in pulling down and rebuilding some of the houses on the property. Lindley, L. J. said 'We none of us see our (3) [1901]1 Ch. 701. (4) [1897] 2Ch.8.