Defendants 1 and 2 are the appellant. The plaintiffs case is that the suit properties have been endowed by the blacksmith and Kammala community for conducting certain charities, that the community appointed defendants 1 and 2 as trustees and that as the 1st defendant was misconducting himself in managing the trust he was removed and that the plaintiffs were appointed trustees. Consequently they sued for the recovery of the properties from the 1st defendant and for other allied reliefs. They instituted the suit under O. 1, R. 8 of the Civil Procedure Code. Objection was taken in the lower Courts that as the scope of the suit showed that it fell within the purview of Sect. 92 of the Civil Procedure Code and as the plaintiffs had not obtained the requisite sanction under that section the suit should be dismissed. The first two Courts upheld this plea but the learned Judge (Odgers, J) in second appeal holding that sanction was not necessary set aside the lower Courts decision and remanded the case for disposal according to law.

The only question argued in this Letters Patent Appeal is whether the plaintiffs suit is bad for want of requisite sanction. The decision of this question, we think, must really depend essentially upon the construction of the pleadings in the case. The plaint shows that the plaintiffs complain that the 1st defendant has not kept proper accounts and has refused generally to allow the accounts to be examined by the community. Though the plaintiffs do not expressly ask for the removal of the 1st defendant from his trusteeship and for their appointment as new trustees and for a declaration that the properties have become vested in them, it in clear that the object of the suit is to get the dismissal of the old trustee and the appointment of the new trustees by the community recognised by the Court and to recover the properties through Court from the 1st defendant. Though the plaint is worded with care to escape from the ban of Sect. 92 Civil Procedure Code, a perusal of it will make it clear that the suit comes within the scope of that section. There is an allegation amounting to a breach of trust and the reliefs asked for really involve the granting of some of the reliefs contemplated by Sect. 92 Civil Procedure Code, namely, the removal of a trustee, the appointment of a new trustee and the vesting of property in the new trustee and the administration of the trust. We have, therefore, no doubt that the suit comes within the scope of Sect. 92 of the Civil Procedure Code.

Various decisions of this Court and other Courts have been brought to our notice, but we do not think it necessary to discuss them as this case is clearly covered by a decision of this Court in O. S. A. No. 106 of 1925. The plaintiff in that case brought a suit claiming to be the lawful Muthawalli of a mosque in the Choolai Bazaar. He alleged that the defendant was appointed manager of the mosque by the congregation, that as he was introducing into the original mosque service new customs till then not observed in that mosque he was removed by the Muhammadan worshippers at a meeting, that he (the plaintiff) was appointed Muthawalli of the said mosque and was instructed to file a suit and obtain possession of the mosque and its endowments from the defendant. The learned Judges, the Chief Justice and Srinivasa Aiyangar, J., on a construction of the plaint held that the suit fell within the scope of Sect. 92 Civil Procedure Code. In the case before us also the allegations in the plaint which we have noticed above are precisely similar to those contained in O. S. A. No. 106 of 1926. As in that case, here also the facts pleaded are perfectly clear that whether the plaintiffs be the lawful trustees or not, a matter which can only be decided in a properly lodged suit they are by virtue of and have been ever since their appointment de facto exercising the functions of trustees and the 1st defendant has no right to exercise them because the plaintiffs have been lawfully appointed in his place and that therefore the 1st defendant is to be deprived of his trusteeship and they should be reinstated in his place. In these circumstances, we must hold that the present suit clearly comes within the principle of the ruling we have just referred to.

We must therefore set aside the decision of the learned Judge and dismiss the plaintiffs suit with costs throughout.