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Ishwar Chanda Sharma v. Devendra Kumar Sharma & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 700Decided 15 May 2025
C.A. No.-006855-006855 - 2025 (arising out of SLP (C) No. 29702 of 2024)
Justice Bela M. Trivedi · Justice Satish Chandra Sharma

Background

For over 25 years, a civil suit has been pending over who should manage the affairs of the Sri Giriraj Temple in Govardhan, Mathura, following a disputed committee election in 1999. During this time, courts repeatedly appointed "Receivers", including practising lawyers, to run the temple's affairs while the underlying case dragged on, and a trial court eventually appointed a seven-member committee (including three advocates) to act as Receiver. The Allahabad High Court, hearing a contempt petition, set aside that committee appointment and flagged a wider problem: temple receiverships across Mathura had become a semi-permanent arrangement rather than the temporary stop-gap the law intended. The appellant, a committee member who was not a party before the High Court, challenged that order before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined data on 197 pending temple-related civil suits in Mathura district and found that many ancient temples had been under Receiver control, often practising advocates, for decades, with little urgency to actually resolve the underlying disputes, since a Receiver's continued role depends on the case staying unresolved. The Court held that the trial court's appointment of a seven-member committee, including lawyers, defeated the purpose of Order XL Rule 1 of the CPC (which allows courts to appoint receivers only as a temporary, just measure) and upheld the High Court's decision to set it aside. It directed that a fresh Receiver be appointed for the temple, this time preferring a person with genuine administrative, historical, religious and social grounding, ideally from the Vaishnav tradition, rather than a practising advocate, and directed the trial court and district judiciary to make every effort to actually decide the underlying 25-year-old suit rather than let receivership become permanent.

Lesson Learnt

Court-appointed receivership over a temple, trust, or other property is meant to be a temporary safeguard while a case is being decided, not a substitute for actually deciding the case, and it should not become a long-term arrangement that benefits the appointee more than the parties or institution it is meant to protect.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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