Is a suit for mere dignity or honour, a suit of civil nature? Give reasons in support of your answer and also refer to case law, if any, on the point?  

Question: Is a suit for mere dignity or honour, a suit of civil nature? Give reasons in support of your answer and also refer to case law, if any, on the point?

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Answer

A suit does not lie for mere honour or dignity unconnected with fees, profits, or emoluments. A suit for declaration and injunction in respect of a right to be carried in a palanquin on certain days through Public Street is not maintainable. Courts will not decide disputes as to precedence or privilege between purely religious functionaries. But civil courts have jurisdiction to entertain a suit for honours if they are claimed as attached inseparably to an office.

In the case of G. Muthuchami Naicker And Ors. v. Senniappa Goundar (1972) 2 MLJ 36, the court observed, “the rule is that once the general right to worship is conceded or established, the Court will not endeavour to lay down the ritual which is to be followed: nor will they prescribe the manner in which the worship is to be conducted.

It is also the rule that when there is no obligation to perform an act of worship, there will be no civil right to claim honours or perquisites or nominal value which ordinarily accompany the ordinary act of worship, except when the perquisites are attached to an office or an obligation. Hence no suit lies for establishing the plaintiffs’ right to the performance of a ritual in a public temple like the Kappukattu or to the full return of the deeparathana offered to the deity which relates merely to an honour”.

Similarly, in Thathachariar v. Srinivasa Raghava Ayyangar (1938) 47 L.W. 459 : (1938) 1 M.L.J. 174, the court stated that mere right of precedence to certain honours or dignity in a temple not attached to any office therein is not a right of a civil nature and a suit in respect of that right is not cognizable by civil courts.

In a suit wherein the plaintiff Claims that certain honours during a festival which he was performing such as theertham, satagopam and thulasi, should be given to him before everybody else, though a right to take part in public worship is a civil right a suit, therefore, is cognizable by a civil Court and though a right to an office in a temple and a right to emoluments attached to that office are rights of a civil nature, a mere right to perform a festival is not a right to an office and even assuming, what is doubtful, that the right to individual and exclusive worship of a deity is a civil right, the right to honours in the course of such worship is not cognizable by a civil Court, much less the right to precedence in the receipt of such honours.

The Right to honour unconnected with an office cannot form the subject matter of a suit. Hence, a suit does not lie for mere honour or dignity.

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