Legal interpretations from Ayodhya Verdict Part 8
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Jay Shree Ram!
These are some notes from Ayodhya
Verdict regarding legal interpretations of certain statutory provisions:
Principle as to personality of
institutions.- Apart from natural persons and corporations, which are
recognised by English law, the position under Hindu law is that if an
endowments is made for a religious or charitable institution, without the
instrumentality of a trust, and the object of the endowment is one which is
recognised as pious, being either religious or charitable under the accepted
notions of Hindu law, the institution will be treated as a juristic person
capable of holding property. – Justice B K Mukhergea
Upon making an endowment, the donor
relinquishes all claims to the endowed property. The property now vests in the
pious purpose at the heart of the endowment which is recognised as a legal
person. The idol forms the material manifestation of the pious purpose and the
consequent centre of jural relations. The beneficiaries of the endowment are
worshippers and the proper maintenance of worship to the idol is to enable the
worshippers to achieve the spiritual benefit of being in communion with the
divine.
Being the physical manifestation of the
pious purpose, even where the idol is submerged, not in existence temporarily,
or destroyed by forces of nature, the pious purpose recognised to be a legal
person continues to exist.
The recognition of the Hindu idol as
a legal or ―juristic‖
person is therefore based on two premises employed by courts. The first is to
recognise the pious purpose of the testator as a legal entity capable of
holding property in an ideal sense absent the creation of a trust. The second
is the merging of the pious purpose itself and the idol which embodies the
pious purpose to ensure the fulfilment of the pious purpose. So conceived, the
Hindu idol is a legal person. The property endowed to the pious purpose is
owned by the idol as a legal person in an ideal sense. The reason why the court
created such legal fictions was to provide a comprehensible legal framework to
protect the properties dedicated to the pious purpose from external threats as
well as internal maladministration. Where the pious purpose necessitated a
public trust for the benefit of all devotees, conferring legal personality
allowed courts to protect the pious purpose for the benefit of the devotees.
Hinduism is an expansive religion
that believes divinity in the form of the Supreme Being is present in every aspect
of creation. The worship of God in Hinduism is not limited to temples or idols
but often extends to natural formations, animals and can even extend to
everyday objects which have significance in a worshipper‘s life. As a matter of
religion, every manifestation of the Supreme Being is divine and worthy of
worship. However, as a matter of law, every manifestation of the Supreme Being
is not a legal person. Legal personality is an innovation arising out of legal
necessity and the need for adjudicative utility. Each conferment of legal
personality absent an express deed of dedication must be judged on the facts of
the case and it is not a sound proposition in law to state that every
manifestation of the Supreme Being results in the creation of a legal person.
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