[Sai Baba Sansthan Trust] Appointment of trustees for public interest of devotees, not private interest of ruling party: Bombay High Court

Appointment of trustees to manage a religious trust is for the public interest of devotees and not for the private interest of the ruling government to accommodate their party workers or politicians, the Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court held [Uttamrao Rambhaji Shelke & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. and connected pleas]..A bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and SG Mehare observed that the posts of the trustees in the public trust had been filled up with members having political background or were close associates of politicians. This, the Court stressed, was against the principles of law and failed to satisfy the intent of having created the trust in the first place.“The appointment of the trustees to such public trust has to satisfy the test of public interest by keeping the purpose and intent of creating such trust under the said Act for the betterment of and in the interest of large members of public devotees of Shri Sai Baba and not the private interest of the ruling Government to accommodate their party workers or politicians,” the Bench said..The observations were part of a judgment cancelling the appointment of members to the present management committee of the Shree Sai Baba Sansthan Trust, Shirdi. The Court also directed the State of Maharashtra to constitute a new committee in accordance with the Act under which the Trust was formulated.The Bench observed that the entire purpose and intent of creating such a trust by the State government under the scheme sanctioned by the Court was defeated for the political gains of the party in power.“In our view, the said Sansthan Trust which is set up with the purpose of public cause having the properties worth crores of rupees owned by the said Trust and lakhs of devotees from all over India and also from some of the other countries is not for accommodating the politicians either because they are closed to the ruling party or having lost some election in past,” the order emphasized..The judgment came in a bunch of public interest litigations challenging a notification of the State government appointing 12 members as trustees on the committee.The grievance of the petitioners apart from the violation of Act was that the trustees appointed by the State belong to Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Indian National Congress parties, they have criminal records, or have lost elections. Counsel for State pointed out that the the members were duly qualified, however, if the petitioners were dissatisfied, they could have approached the State for disqualification of any of the member, which the State would have considered..Relying upon its own judgment of 2017 which was rendered in petitions challenging the earlier management committee, the High Court reiterated that no political appointments should be made to the Sansthan or no appointments should be made for political reasons.Finding the appointments to be in favour of the then ruling party, the Court had in 2017 directed the State government to revisit every appointment made on that committee, in view of the guidelines passed.“This Court expects the State Government to at least keep the God away while distributing public largesses. God is not a fiefdom of ruling coalition” the earlier order underscored..None of the appointments made by way of the 2021 notification were in compliance with the 2017 judgment, the High Court said and proceeded to quash and set aside the 2021 notification.It ordered the State to constitute the new committee within 8 weeks from today.In the meantime, it directed that the affairs of the trust will be monitored by a committee consisting of:the Principal District Judge of Ahmednagar (Chairman), the Collector of Ahmednagar and the Chief Executive Officer of Shree Sai Baba Sansthan Trust Shirdi (members)..[Read judgment]