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Showing contexts for: void trust in Mirza Hidayat Beg vs Seth Behari Lal on 28 January, 1941Matching Fragments
2. The defendants to this suit were the surviving trustees nominated under the trust, two other persons who questioned the settlor's right of cancelling the trust and five members of the public who maintained its validity. Under Order 1, Rule 8, Civil P.C., proceedings were taken to make the litigation a representative one. The plaintiff's case, shortly stated, is that the said wakf embodied a sham and fictitious transaction and assuming it to be genuine, the trusts created by it were void for vagueness, indefiniteness and uncertainty and were against public policy and "were not of a charitable nature. The trial Court found that the trust deed was duly executed but the trust created by it was void and unenforceable in law and it gave to the plaintiff the declaration claimed for. Against the said judgment and decree, some of the defendants have preferred this appeal. The deed of wakf is an elaborate document. In the preamble, the settlor expresses his desire to devote his property for charity and he regards national education as the best form of charity and dedicates his property for that purpose. He explains what his conception of national education is. Having done so he appoints a board of trustees consisting, of nine members, including himself, for management and administration of the trust. He then lays down the aims and objects of the trust or wakf which are the establishment of a school and a boarding house and founding of scholarships for foreign education. This is followed by a detailed scheme of management the noticeable features, of which are that the settlor was to remain the managing trustee for his life and after him his foster son Debi Sabai was to remain the managing trustee for life and both of them were to receive 1/3rd of the nett income of the estate for their lives with a right of residence in a house subject of endowment. Provision was also made for the payment of Rs. 500 per mensem as allowances to certain ladies dependent upon him, for the payment of Rs. 100 per mensem for the upkeep of certain temples and for the payment of Rs. 26,800 for debts owing by the settlor. In the end there was a schedule specifying the property endowed which was situated in about fifty villages and also consisted of numerous houses in the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Saharanpur and which yielded an annual income of over Rs. 50,000. (Their Lordships proceeded further to state as to how the settlor came to be possessed of the trust property, the circumstances under which the trust was executed and the subsequent acts and conduct of settlor. It is manifest that from its inception to the end not a penny was spent for the purposes of the trust and beyond execution and registration of the deed and mutation of names in Government papers-and change in the form of accounts of the estate and the ostensible management of the estate in the name of trust and holding of occasional meetings of the trustees in which no real business relating to trust was transacted, nothing wag done to promote or carry out the trust or its scheme.
14. It is not disputed that a trust for charity generally or for education generally is not void for indefiniteness or uncertainty and that it is a perfectly good trust. Although charity is a term and education is an expression which applies or may apply to a variety of objects about which there may be a legitimate difference of opinion, charity, e.g., may be relief of poor, it may be relief of sick or it may be advancement of learning, etc. Education may be of a "maktab type" of a "pathshala type" or of a "gurukul type" or of a "public school type." It may be primary> secondary, High School or of University variety; it may be philosophical, scientific, literary and so on. Yet, it is not disputed that a trust in favour of education simpliciter will not be void for vagueness or indefiniteness simply because the term education applies to a variety of objects about which there may be a difference of opinion and different persons may have different ideas about it. The mere fact that in founding a charity the settlor has described it in general terms so that the description given by him applies to a number of objects does not render the trust void for indefiniteness or uncertainty. Indefiniteness or uncertainty in relation to charitable trusts arises where charitable trusts are mixed up with non-charitable trusts or where charitable trusts and non-charitable trusts are created by alternative clauses disjunctively used. But where trust is exclusively for charity or exclusively for a charitable object, and that charitable object has great many facts or includes a variety of objects within its denomination each of which in its terms is charitable, the diversity and multiplicity of objects to which charity may be applied and difference of opinion that may exist about including objects within its denomination will not render charity vague or indefinite. The essential thing to make a charity vague, indefinite or uncertain is that it should be mixed up with non charitable objects or it should include objects both of charitable and non-charitable nature alternatively or disjunctively or in such close alliance that it should lead to the application of trust funds to non-charitable purposes.
15. A great many cases were cited at the Bar but there is no dispute as to law. The law has been well settled that indefiniteness or uncertainty in relation to the objects of a trust may render the entire trust void. To determine uncertainty or indefiniteness in relation to trusts, one of the rules of the English Court of equity is that the Court must be in a position to supervise the trust and administer it in case of a breach of trust or in case of any other circumstance arising in connexion with it in which such a course becomes necessary and where the Court is not in a position to administer the trust by reason of the vagueness of the object of trust the trust is void : see Morice v. Bishop of Durham (1805) 10 Ves. 522; see also In re Hummeltenberg (1923) 1 Ch. 237. Another rule of equity is that a Court cannot make a new will for the founder of trust if he has left his language vague or uncertain so that either his meaning cannot be found out or the natural meaning of expression used by him is such that it can equally apply to charitable objects and also to non-charitable objects and it is not possible to separate them in law : see Grimond v. Grimond (1905) 1905 A.C. 124. These rules are firmly established and there is no question about them.
20. The cases which lay down that the trust for "patriotic objects" are not charitable have no application because "patriotic objects" in plural may include objects some of which may be charitable and some non-charitable. Similarly, the cases which lay down that a trust for "political purposes" or a trust for "political uplift of India" is void for indefiniteness do not apply because political purposes or political uplift may include works which are non-charitable. The trust ex hypothesi is a trust for a single definite object namely to teach nationalism or patriotism. In this country where so many castes and communities and sects and divisions exist, and where there are so many conflicts and animosities, religious, communal or provincial, a trust for promoting unity and a sense of nationalism may well be regarded as a trust for an object of public utility and benefit and consequently of a charitable nature, and if it were necessary to do so, we should be prepared to hold that it is both charitable and definite. A trust for promoting nationalism and patriotism cannot be regarded per se as a trust for political propaganda or for political purpose or a trust for purposes so shadowy, or indefinite as teaching of spiritualism or training of mediums. But the point really does not arise because the trust created by the settlor in our judgment was for education and for founding a school in which education was to be imparted with certain special characteristics. These special characteristics were that the education was to be national according to the standard laid down by the Congress and for the propagation of which educational schools existed in the country and its special features in the conception of the settlor were that it was to be free from official restrictions, free from official management. Its medium was Indian vernaculars and the education was to lay special stress on giving instructions on spinning of yarns, weaving and also other kind of industrial and manual subjects and on creating in the students national feelings, love of motherland and purity of character.