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10. The person founding a deity and becoming responsible for these duties is de facto and in Common parlance called Shebait. This responsibility is, of course, maintained by a pious Hindu, either by the personal performance of the religious rites or-as in the case of Sudras, to which caste the parties belonged-by the employment of a Brahmin priest to do so on his behalf. Or the founder, any time before his death or his successor likewise, may confer the office of Shebait on another.

11. Under the will of Mutty Lal Mullick he did not adopt the latter course, but he acted as Shebait with the Brahmin assistance referred to. After his death his widow officiated similarly as the ministrant of the worship, and she used, as directed, the endowed funds specially destined for the upkeed and worship of the deity. After the adopted son Jadulal reached the age of twenty he then became de facto the person, charged with the same duties, to be performed as fully as his adoptive father and mother had performed them.

12. It must be remembered in regard to this branch of the law that the duties of piety from the time of the consecration of the idol are duties to something existing which, though symbolizing the Divinity, has in the eye of the law status as a separate persona. The position and rights of the deity must in order to work this out both in regard to its preservation, its maintenance and the services to be performed, be in the charge of a human being Accordingly he is the Shebait custodian of the idol and manager of its estate. And HO, paying proper respect to the religious proprieties of the case, the father, mother and adopted son were successively and de facto ministrants and custodians of this idol.

28. Their lordships would only add, on the subject of property, that the argument is said to be supported by the judgment of Banerji J. in Khetter Chunder Ghose v. Han Das Bundopadhya (1890) I.L.R. 17 Cal. 557. In that case the facts were that the household idol was made over to relatives, owing to the family, whose idol it was, being unable to carry on the worship on account of the paucity of profits of the endowed lands, and it was held that the transfer was justified in the interests of the idol. It was a proper and a pious act. The Shebait, being charged fundamentally with the duty of seeing to the worship being carried on, and, having the concurrence of the entire family to the transaction, did have power to Carry through the transaction "for the purpose of performing its worship regularly through generation to generation " The members of the family were thereby deprived of no right of worship. The interest of worshippers and idol were conserved. Their lordships do not think that such cases form any ground for the proposition that Hindu family idols are property in the crude sense maintained, or that their destruction, degradation or injury are within the power of their custodian for the time being. Such ideas appear to be in violation of the sanctity attached to the idol, whose legal entity and rights as such the law of India has long recognised

36. A fortiori it is open to an idol acting through his guardian the Shebait to conduct its worship in its own way at its own place always on the assumption that the acts of the Shebait expressing its will are not inconsistent with the reverent and proper conduct of its worship by those members of the family who render service and pay homage to it.

37. A question was raised whether the right of worship of an idol can be made the subject of partition. Their lordships have already referred to this point when dealing with the arbitration proceedings.