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On appeal by the defendant, the High Court of judicature at Nagpur has set aside the judgment and decree of the Trial Court and ordered the dismissal of the suit. The High Court was of opinion that the dedication of the village Telibandha had not been proved. The High Court agreed with the Trial Court that dedication by Dinanath Sao himself, by a Patha in 1857 as alleged in the plaint had not been established ; but disagreeing with the Trial Court, it held that there was no absolute dedication of the village for the purpose of the temple by the Panch Faisla Award of 1896 and no trust was created thereby. On a construction of this document the learned judges of the High Court held that it did not show more than a partial dedication of the village as distinguished from an absolute dedication. Accordingly, the High Court allowed the appeal and ordered the suit to be dismissed without going into the other questions as regards the character of the temple or whether the defendant had committed breaches of trust.

The learned Attorney-General concedes this position. He argues, however, that if the award that made the dedication has such legal infirmity as to make it invalid in law, the dedication also must be held to be invalid. But, has the award been shown to have any legal infirmity ? The answer to this question must be in the negative. The plaintiffs in the suit of 1897 did , it is true, allege certain infirmities. We need not discuss the question whether the temple was a necessary party to the suit. For, in fact, the Court did not consider whether such infirmity existed and as pointed out above., dismissed the suit. The reference to Mr. Bagchi was made by the parties to the suit orally requesting him as shown by the preamble to the award ""to decide whether the Faisla Panchayati (i.e., award of panchas) was proper or not, adding that in case it was not proper, changes may be made in it whenever it may be necessary and improper". On a reasonable interpretation of these words it does not seem that Mr. Bagchi was asked to consider whether the original award suffered from any infirmity in law. Even more important than that is the fact that there is not a single word in Bagchi's award to indicate, even remotely, that in his opinion, the award suffered from any infirmity. On the contrary, Mr. Bagchi accepted the previous award and gave his own interpretation of it, saying that by the award after "'including mouzas Borsi and Telibandha in the partition the Panchas caused the same to be given to Ramsaran Lal and his brothers." It is true that he added the words "'I too by means of this award cause the same to be given to them", and then gave certain directions. Quite clearly, therefore, he proceeded on the basis that the award was a good and valid award. We are therefore clearly of opinion that the validity and force of the dedication made by the Panch Faisla has not in any way been affected by the Bagchi Award. It is equally clear that the way Ramsaran Lal or after him Kamal Narayan dealt with this village Telibandha or its income can in no way affect the force or validity of the absolute nature of the dedication. The fact, therefore, that Ramsaran Lal used to credit the income from Telibandha to the Gharu Khata which was maintained for the general expenses of the family or that he made certain alienations of the property cannot change the absolute dedication into a partial dedication. It may well be that Ramsaran Lal was himself led by the terms of the Bagchi award into thinking that the property belonged to the family with only a charge on it for the temple. Whether or not this was so or his conduct was due to deliberate dereliction of duty is really irrelevant for our present purpose. As the High Court rightly pointed out the course of conduct of the parties is of no relevance for the construction of a document which is itself unambiguous. As in our opinion, the document (the Panch Faisla Award of 1896) clearly and unambiguously shows an .absolute dedication of the village to Shri Ramchandra Swamy temple, we think it unnecessary to examine the oral or documentary evidence as to how the property or the income of Telibandha was dealt with. Our conclusion therefore is that the High Court's decision that the plaintiff's case of absolute dedication of Telibandha in favour of Shri Ramchandra Swamy has not been established is not correct and the High Court's order based on that view that the plaintiff was not entitled to succeed, must be set aside. In view of its decision that absolute dedication had not been proved, the High Court did not consider it necessary to decide the several other issues which had been framed in the suit and without deciding which the suit cannot be properly disposed of.