The Hindu Law of Religious and Charitable Trusts

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Description
A great necessity was felt for a fresh series of lectures with the progress of the law on the subject though there were already delivered two series dealing with the same subject. Hence Dr. B.K. Mukherjea’s classic lectures. The law that was applied to deal with the Hindu religious and charitable trusts was based on the principles of English equity and customs and usages of our country. There were also a few legislative enactments. But in short the materials were very scanty and much disproportionate to the gigantic task that was to be dealt with. Dr. Mukherjea naturally had to depend largely on the principles evolved by the Privy Council and the different High Courts of India in preparing his lectures and to systematize, towards this end, to judge – made law on the subject. Wherever necessary, he contrasted those principles developed in ancient Rome and under the common law of England. He was also amphy benefited by J.C. Ghosh who trod the ground in his Tagore Law Lectures delivered in 1923.
As the law of Hindu Religious and Charitable Trusts has assumed great importance vis-à-vis taxation laws against the background of legislative amendments and new judicial pronouncements, this edition pays much attention to this aspect. It omits the different State Acts on the subject enacted after Independence that have been published by publishers. The chapter on the Constitution of India and Religious Endowments of the fourth edition being too much elaborate has been replaced by the analogous chapter of the third edition which discuses all the salient points. The first chapter of the previous edition has been abridged by omitting the lase few articles. And all these are in no way to detract from the original merit of this monumental work.
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Contents
1.    Fundamental ideas underlying religious and charitable trusts in Hindu Law
2.    Essentials of a religious and charitable trust under Hindu law
3.    Purposes and formalities of a valid religious and charitable trust
4.    Religious trusts in favour of idols (debutter)
5.    Management of debutter—shebaitship—its legal character and incidents
6.    Administration of debutter; rights. Duties and powers of a shebait
7.    Religious institutions or maths; Administration of maths: legal status, rights,
       duties and powers of mahants
8.    The constitution of India and the Hindu law of religious and charitable trusts
9.    Enforcement of religious and charitable trust—remedies for breaches of trust:
       suits and judicial proceedings in relation thereto
10.  Taxation and religious trust
Appendix
1 - Summary of saraswati's law of endowments
2 - Summary of J.C. Ghosh's law of Hindu religious endowments
3 - Sections 11 and 13 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 as amended by the Finance Act, 1983
Index
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Author Details
Author – B.K. Mukherjea
Fifth Edition edited by A.C. Sen, MA, LLM, Former Judge, Calcutta High Court
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