Almighty is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient without any physical existence but religions have incarnated shapes to this spirit in the form of idols, deities, temples, sculptures, etc. Though almighty is not a juristic person in the eyes of law, Idols became a new category of persons having legal existence different from natural persons cast with duties and rights in a highly religious community like India. Idols and deities are physical manifestations of the Supreme Being.
As worshippers began to dedicate, donate, and even build temples in the name of God, property disputes began to heat up in British Courts in the 19th century. It was an inevitable need of the age, that a divine Supreme Being to be delineated within the perimeters of a legal entity. It was a legal innovation necessitated by historical circumstances, the gap in the existing law, and considerations of convenience.
The position of a juristic person is not identical in every religion. In Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and many other groups, the characteristics of a legal person are not fulfilled by their deity. However, this is commonly seen in Hinduism. As enshrined by the Supreme Court in Yogendra Nath Naskar v. Commissioner of Income Tax – It is not all idols that will qualify for being a juristic person but only when it is consecrated and installed at a public place for the public at large. From the British Courts to the contemporary judiciary the idea of the juristic identity of idols has evolved and through different phases of transition, it has been deeply rooted in Indian law.
Just like a corporate entity, idols have gained various rights like the right to own property, a separate entity, tax management, and the right to sue and be sued. Through judicial interpretations, even the scope of fundamental rights of these deities is being raised in recent cases.
The Jurisprudence behind Rights of the Almighty
A juristic person as opposed to a natural person is an entity to whom law vests with a personality. It is an artificial, fictitious personality having the rights and duties just like a natural person. The notion of juristic personality to idols arose as the right to possess property raised various disputes around the country. To whom the property rights of religious institutions vest was a riddle even before Independence. Thus to settle the dispute a legal fiction was found by the British Court granting personality to deities and all the resources of the deity to be managed by a manager as of an infant heir.
The concept was instilled even after independence by the Indian judicial system. Its genesis can be found in Roman law – where the property was dedicated to a particular religious or charitable purpose and not to an identified donee, the religious/charitable purpose itself was elevated to the status of a legal foundation. The foundation was a separate legal entity and came to own the dedicated property.
In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the Apex Court observed that the very words juristic person connote recognition of an entity to be in law a person which otherwise it is not. In other words, it is not an individual natural person but an artificially created person which is to be recognized to be in law as such. Similar status is granted to animals, companies, corporations, rivers, etc. by Courts. The creation of an endowment resulted in the creation of an artificial legal person. A juridical person is formed on the creation of an endowment for a benevolent or pious purpose. Where the endowment is made to an idol, the idol forms the material representation of the legal person.
In 1887, the Bombay High Court held in the Dakor Temple case: Hindu idol is a juridical subject and the pious idea that it embodies is given the status of a legal person. This was further strengthened in the 1921 order in Vidya Varuthi Thirtha vs Balusami Ayyar, where the Court reiterated that, under the Hindu law, the image of a deity is a ‘juristic entity’, vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property. Pramatha Nath Mullick v. Pradyumna Kumar Mullick & Ors is another cornerstone on the same perspective of law.
From various judicial decisions, not all Gods can be juristic persons but only those having an idol worshipped by the believers are called juristic persons. Thus in the Christian and Muslim faith, it is the place that is worshipped and the deities are not an object of worship itself, thus it cannot enrich under the term juristic person. Many churches and mosques are formed as trusts managed by their trustee and the core beneficiaries are the believers themselves.
In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass, the Court observed that Guru Granth Sahib cannot be equated with other sacred books. Guru Granth Sahib is revered like a guru and is the heart and soul of the Gurudwara. The reverence on one hand and other sacred books on the other hand is based on different conceptual faith, belief, and application. The Court thus reiterated that Guru Granth Sahib could not be a juristic person unless it takes a juristic role through installation in a Gurdwara or at such other recognized public places.
The decision of the Supreme Court by Mukerji J. in Rambrahma v. Kedar Nath Banerjee gives clarity on how an idol attained the status of a juristic person in the eyes of law. The Court observed that The daily routine of life is gone through with minute accuracy; the vivified image is regaled with the necessaries and luxuries of life in due succession, oven to the changing of clothes, the offering of cooked and uncooked food, and the retirement to rest.
The normal practices of worshipping a consecrated idol include sweeping its place of existence; offering flowers, ornaments, and food; bathing it with milk, curd, and turmeric; the process of smearing; the respectful oblation of rice with flowers, water; and other like practices. It denotes that the almighty is conceived as a living being and is treated just like a master of the house being treated by his servants. On this line, the judiciary propounded a conceptual framework within which they could adjudicate disputes and clear the dilemma.
Rights of the Idol
An idol is a juristic person who possesses various rights vested in it by a statute. It includes the right to own property and wealth in its own name and enjoy, manage and dispose of such property by its manager without any maladministration. Under tax laws, idols and deities are implicitly a part of the individual for assessment of tax. Further, it has the right to sue and be sued.
In Pramatha Nath Mullick v. Pradyumna Kumar Mullick & Ors, Lord Shaw observed: A Hindu idol is, according to long-established authority, founded upon the religious customs of the Hindus, and the recognition thereof by Courts of law, a ‘juristic entity’. It has a juridical status with the power of suing and being sued. Its interests are attended to by the person who has the deity in his charge and who is in law its manager with all the powers which would, in such circumstances, on analogy, be given to the manager of the estate of an infant heir. It is unnecessary to quote the authorities; for this doctrine thus simply stated, is firmly established“.
It should however be remembered that the juristic person in the idol is not the material image, and it is an exploded theory that the image itself develops into a legal person as soon as it is consecrated. In Bhupathi Nath Smrititirtha v Ram Lal Maitra, the court observed that even a will made to bequeath a part of the property to trustees for the establishment of an idol of the Goddess Kali and the worship of the idol after the testator‘s death was valid. Thus, the right to hold property by an idol not in existence at the time of death was affirmed by the Court.
The Supreme Court in Yogendra Nath Naskar v. Commissioner of Income Tax, has recognized that Hindu deities fall within the meaning of the word person under Section 2 of the Income Tax Act and could be treated as a unit of assessment under the Section and was thus capable of being taxed through its shebaits or managers.
It is important to note that idols do not possess fundamental rights under the Constitution. The question of the right to privacy of Lord Ayyappa was brought before the Supreme Court in the Sabarimala case; where the Court observed that mere artificial existence of an idol does not guarantee the constitutional and fundamental rights available to a natural person.
Ayodhya Judgement – A Firm Stand for Rights of the Almighty
In the 2010 Allahabad HC judgment in the Ayodhya title suit, Justice D V Sharma narrated that, As in the case of minors, a guardian is appointed and so in the case of an idol, a Shebait or manager is appointed to act on their behalf. Upholding the doctrine of legal personality, the Supreme Court in 2019 observed that Janmaasthan of Lord Ram is the place where Babri Mosque has been constructed and allocated the disputed land to the Ayodhya Hindu community to worship the their deity.
This landmark case discussed the evolution of the concept of the juristic identity of an idol and its right to hold property. It also held that Asthan Shri Ram Janam Bhumi is not a juristic person based on the notion that conferring legal identity to the immovable property has no nexus to the limited purpose for which juristic personality is conferred. The Court took a pragmatic approach by holding that, The elevation of land to the status of a juristic person fundamentally alters its characteristics as immovable property, a severe consequence against which a Court must guard. Nor is it a valid safeguard to postulate that the Court will decide on a case-to-case basis where a particular immovable property should have a juristic status. Absent any objective standard of application the process of drawing lines will be rendered inherently subjective, denuding the efficacy of the judicial process.
Relying on the decision in Bhupati Nath Smrititirtha v Ram Lal Maitra, the Court observed that even the destruction of an idol does not result in the termination of the pious purpose and consequently the endowment. Even where the idol is destroyed, or the presence of the idol itself is intermittent or entirely absent, the legal personality created by the endowment continues to subsist.
Sabarimala Judgment – A new Dimension
The very recent judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Indian Young Lawyers Association & Ors. v. The State of Kerala & Ors dealt with the question of whether Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala has a denominational character while discussing the right of menstruating women in entering the temple to exercise her right to practice religion under Fundamental Rights enshrined in Article 15, 25, and 26 of our Constitution of India. Adhering to the duty of the Court to be a part of the transformation of law in tune with society, it took a progressive approach against the patriarchy in religion. Here the petitioner urged that since every Hindu temple functions under the direction of the Devaswom Board, they are bound to follow the basic tenets of Hindu religion; the individual ill practice of any temple contrary to the basic tenets of Hindu religion is impermissible.
Furthermore, in order to constitute a separate religious denomination not only the practices followed by that denomination should be different but its administration should also be distinct and separate; which, in the instant case, was centralized under the Devaswom Board. The contention of the defendant on the prohibition of women of the notified age was based on the fiction that Ayyappa being a nairshika brahmachari has the right to privacy to exclude such a category of women from worshipping. Here, the defendant took a step further in recognizing the fundamental rights of an almighty in this case. However, the Court held that Merely because a deity has been granted limited rights as juristic persons under statutory law does not mean that the deity necessarily has constitutional rights.
Conclusion
The concept of juristic personality to deities by the courts is to overcome the contemporary legal lacunae and ensure societal peace and harmony. India being a secular state has to treat every religion equally without any discrimination. The incarceration of legal identity exclusively to Hinduism has raised many public outcries by other religious groups. The scope of legal personality should be limited to pious purposes and should not be misused. The interest of the devotees must be the utmost goal.
From Shahid Gunj to Ayodhya, in a country like ours where contesting claims over property by religious communities are inevitable, our courts cannot reduce questions of title, which fall firmly within the secular domain and outside the rubric of religion, to a question of which community‘s faith is stronger. In this process of adjudication Court should draw a concrete line between religious sentiments and the legal rights of a community. There should be a progressive interpretation and reformative approach to uphold secularism in our country and perfectly balance the religious beliefs and faiths. Law cannot be stagnant; it should evolve with the changing social circumstances as it has a great role to play in the social transformation.