Public Trust Registrar Must Maintain Statutory Registers and Ensure Trust Property Is Identified and Demarcated.

The petitioner alleged that the Registrar of Public Trusts, Badwani, was not properly maintaining the registers required under the M.P. Public Trust Rules, 1962, in relation to respondent No. 4 Trust.

He also raised concerns about ambiguity over the Trust’s land and sought its identification and demarcation. Although the petition initially sought wider relief, the petitioner confined his request to maintenance of the prescribed registers and proper identification and demarcation of the Trust’s property. The State and the Trust did not oppose those limited requests.

1. Whether the Registrar of Public Trusts, Badwani, should be directed to ensure that the registers required under the M.P. Public Trust Rules, 1962, are properly maintained for respondent No. 4 Trust.

2. Whether the Trust’s property should be identified and demarcated, and its affairs regulated, in accordance with law.

The Court applied the M.P. Public Trust Rules, 1962, including Rules 3(i), 3(ii), 7 and 8, which require the prescribed registers or extracts to be maintained in accordance with the Rules.

It also directed that the Trust’s property be identified and demarcated, and that the Trust’s affairs be regulated, in accordance with the provisions of law.

The Court considered the petitioner’s limited request, the asserted deficiencies in maintaining the statutory registers, and the concern that uncertainty over the Trust’s land could impede its proper management.

It regarded the requested measures as serving both the Trust and those served by it, and therefore as being in the larger public interest. Since neither the State nor the Trust opposed the limited relief, the Court directed compliance with the Rules and required identification and demarcation of the property.

The Registrar must ensure that all registers mandated by the M.P. Public Trust Rules, 1962, are maintained within two months of communication of the order. The Trust’s entire property must be identified and demarcated within three months, and its affairs must be regulated in accordance with law.