Delhi High Court slaps ₹1 lakh costs on litigant for adding Lord Hanuman as party to case

The Delhi High Court recently imposed costs of ₹1 lakh on a litigant for including Lord Hanuman as a party in a dispute over a temple built on private land..In order to prevent the litigant from claiming that Lord Hanuman should share the costs of the petition, Justice C Hari Shankar sarcastically said,"In order to avoid Appellant 1 Ankit Mishra now advancing the contention that the costs had to be shared by Lord Hanuman, it is clarified that the costs would be entirely payable by him- with a small 'h‘.".The Court was hearing a matter in which certain persons (defendants) occupied land by adverse possession and built a temple on it. The actual owner of the land (plaintiff) sought to vacate the defendants from the land. A trial court eventually passed a settlement decree by which the plaintiff agreed to pay ₹11 lakh to the defendants to vacate the land. When they refused to do so, the plaintiff filed an execution petition.The appellant before the High Court (Mishra) then filed an objection petition before the lower court saying that since the land belongs to Lord Hanuman (in whose honour the temple was built), he was entitled to protect the deity's interest as his next friend. After the trial court dismissed this plea, Mishra moved the High Court.He contended that the settlement decree between the plaintiff and defendants was an endeavour to prevent him from offering prayers and performing rituals at the temple in question..Justice Hari Shankar began his judgment by saying,"I never thought that God would, one day, be a litigant before me. This appears, however, thankfully, to be a case of Divinity By Proxy."This is the worst and most pernicious kind of practice that can be resorted to, he added. "Worse, in order to lend a veneer of credibility to his ill-motivated objections, Ankit Mishra chose to include Lord Hanuman as objector 2," the Court stated..The Court noted that there was nothing to indicate, even prima facie, that the temple was a public temple. "The submission that Appellant 1 was entitled to defend Lord Hanuman as his next friend does not, therefore, survive for consideration," the Court added..The High Court also remarked that if an individual constructs a temple on their private property primarily for themselves and their family, there is no prohibition against allowing members of the public to offer prayers at the temple during festive occasions.However, the public worshipping at a private temple, even with free access, does not ipso facto indicate that the temple is a public temple, the Court added."Neither does the land on which a private temple is constructed vest in the deity, merely because the public are allowed to worship there. What is of essence is the purpose for which the temple was constructed and dedicated to the deity consecrated in it, and the purpose for which the temple has been thrown open to the public. The onus to establish that the temple, though initially privately constructed, acquires public character with the passage of time, is all the persons who asserting.".With the above observations, the Court dismissed the appeal at the threshold and directed Mishra to cover the costs for Malik.Advocate Abhishek Grover appeared for the appellants.Advocates Sarojanand Jha, Rajreeta Ghosh, and Rahul Kumar appeared for respondents..[Read Order]