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R.M. Sundaram @ R.Meenakshisundaram vs Sri Kayarohanasamy and Neelayadhakshi Amman Temple

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 665Decided 11 Jul 2022
Civil Appeal Nos. 3964-3965 of 2009
Ajay Rastogi · Sanjiv Khanna

Background

The appellant claimed personal family ownership of 26 items of valuable temple jewellery ("suit jewellery"), inherited as the adopted son of one Muthuthandapani Chettiar, who had historically held keys to the temple's secure vault (Kudavarai) where the jewellery was stored. The Sri Kayarohanasamy and Neelayadhakshi Amman Temple in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, contested this, asserting the jewellery had been donated by the appellant's ancestors around 1894 specifically to adorn the deity during the annual ten-day Adipooram festival, and that the family's key-holding was merely an honorary role, not ownership. Multiple rounds of litigation across trial courts, appellate courts, and the Madras High Court produced conflicting decisions on the appellant's mandatory injunction suit and the Temple's declaration suit.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the concurrent factual findings of three courts: supported by temple registers (Exhibit A-1) recording the jewellery as "Adipooram Ambal Thiru Abaranam" since at least 1894, and witness testimony that the family never claimed personal rights over it: established a valid "specific religious endowment," which under settled law (citing Deoki Nandan v. Murlidhar and other precedents) does not require a formal deed and can be inferred from long, consistent religious use. The Court rejected the appellant's res judicata and Order II Rule 2 (CPC) defenses because the Temple's earlier 1981 suit had been dismissed on technical grounds, not on merits, so it could not bar the later suit. The Court upheld the declaration that the jewellery is a public religious endowment and modified the injunction to restrain the appellant from interfering with the Temple's right to take out the jewellery for festival use, while ordering the appellant to return one missing item within 30 days; the appeals were dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

Property placed in the custody of a family for generations, purely to perform an honorary religious duty (like holding festival keys), does not become that family's private property: long, uninterrupted religious use consistent with a temple's own records can establish a binding "endowment" even without a formal donation document.

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

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