Deputy Commissioner Cannot Adjudicate Inter Se Succession Rights to Hereditary Archakship.

Sri Deviramma Temple was treated as a Muzarai temple, and the Deputy Commissioner’s order dated 5 September 2023 recognised hereditary Archakship in the branch of late Havale Gowda, with the Tahsildar thereafter arranging worship by rotation.

Puttegouda’s turn was denied by a memorandum dated 11 January 2024, which referred to an adverse police report; he challenged that decision in W.P. No. 3388/2024.

In W.P. No. 24820/2025, members of the Havale Gowda family challenged the Commissioner’s order dated 5 June 2025, which had set aside the Deputy Commissioner’s 2023 order and remanded the matter.

The competing claims concerned, among other matters, the effect of a 1999 consent document and a 2001 order recognising Kari Gowda’s position.

The Court found that deciding the family members’ respective succession rights required determination of disputed civil questions, including the genuineness and effect of the 1999 document.

1. Whether Section 25B(6)(iii) of the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997 empowers the Deputy Commissioner to determine competing family members’ inter se succession and entitlement to hereditary Archakship.

2. Whether the Deputy Commissioner’s order dated 5 September 2023, which recognised and regulated the parties’ respective turns, was sustainable in law.

3. Whether the Commissioner was justified in setting aside that order and remanding the matter, or whether the parties’ competing civil claims had to be determined by a Civil Court.

4. Whether the Commissioner’s order dated 5 June 2025 called for interference, and what consequential relief should follow.

Section 25B(6)(iii) of the Act empowers the Deputy Commissioner to decide whether an Archak or temple servant holds or held office on the basis of hereditary right; it does not confer jurisdiction to determine rival family members’ succession, turns, relinquishment, or other inter se civil rights.

Sections 25B(7) and (8) permit an appeal to the Commissioner and empower the Commissioner to make an appropriate order in accordance with law.

Section 9(1)’s first proviso provides for appointment of the next person in the line of succession to a hereditary post where there is no dispute among family members; it does not supply a mechanism for deciding a disputed succession claim.

Sri C.L. Parashivamurthy v. State of Karnataka, WA No. 1687/2024, recognises the Deputy Commissioner’s jurisdiction over the hereditary character of an Archak’s office, but not over competing civil claims to succeed to it.

Ramachandra v. Shivaram, ILR 2008 Karnataka 4878, Ram Rattan v. Bajrang Lal, (1978) 3 SCC 236, and Narayanam Seshacharyulu v. Narayanam Venkatacharyulu, AIR 1957 AP 876, support the character of hereditary Archakship as a heritable and partible property right, but do not expand the Deputy Commissioner’s statutory jurisdiction.

The genuineness, registration requirements, and legal effect of the disputed document, and the parties’ succession rights, were left for determination by a competent Civil Court.

The Deputy Commissioner’s 2023 order went beyond deciding whether the Archak’s office was hereditary: by recognising particular family members’ entitlement and prescribing turns, it resolved contested succession and civil-rights questions outside Section 25B(6)(iii).

The earlier 2001 order did not, on the material before the Court, establish Kari Gowda’s exclusive hereditary right, but the Court also declined to determine the other family members’ rights or the effect of the disputed 1999 document.

The Commissioner was therefore right to set aside the Deputy Commissioner’s order.

Remand was nevertheless inappropriate because the Deputy Commissioner lacked jurisdiction to decide the inter se civil dispute; the parties must pursue those claims in the Civil Court.

The rotational arrangement could not be restored on the basis of the invalidated order.

The separate challenge to the Tahsildar’s 11 January 2024 memorandum was dismissed, without a distinct determination of the legality of its police-report condition.

W.P. No. 3388/2024 was dismissed.

W.P. No. 24820/2025 was allowed in part: the Commissioner’s decision to set aside the Deputy Commissioner’s 5 September 2023 order was upheld, but the remand was set aside; the parties were left to seek adjudication of their respective civil rights before a competent Civil Court.

The request to restore the order or continue rotational Archakship was rejected, and the parties’ substantive rights were left open.