Suits By or Against Public Trusts — Section 92 CPC Explained

This article is for educational and legal awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice or solicitation. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on specific legal matters.

Overview

Not every dispute touching a temple, mosque, gurdwara, church, or charitable institution can be litigated the way an ordinary civil suit is filed. Where the dispute concerns an alleged breach of a public trust of a charitable or religious nature, or where the court’s directions are needed to administer such a trust, Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) imposes special conditions on who may sue, what relief may be claimed, and how the suit may be instituted. A suit that ought to have followed Section 92 but did not can fail on that ground alone, regardless of the merits of the underlying grievance. This article explains the scheme of Section 92, who may be a plaintiff, the reliefs available, and how courts have read the provision.

Statutory Framework — Section 92, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908

The Trigger: Breach of a Public Charitable or Religious Trust

Section 92(1) applies “in the case of any alleged breach of any express or constructive trust created for public purposes of a charitable or religious nature, or where the direction of the Court is deemed necessary for the administration of any such trust.” Two things follow from this wording. First, the trust must be public — a private family trust or a personal endowment for named individuals is outside the section. Second, the suit must genuinely concern a breach of the trust or the need for the court’s directions in administering it; a suit that merely uses trust-related facts to seek a personal or property remedy is not, for that reason alone, a Section 92 suit.

Who May Sue, and the Requirement of Leave of the Court

Under Section 92(1), a suit of this kind may be instituted only by:

the Advocate-General, or
two or more persons having an interest in the trust, and only after they have obtained the leave of the Court.

The requirement of leave is not a formality — it is a statutory pre-condition to the suit itself. A suit filed by private individuals interested in a trust, seeking the reliefs Section 92 speaks of, without first obtaining the court’s leave, is liable to be found not maintainable in that form. The suit is to be instituted in the principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction, or in any other court that the State Government has empowered for the purpose, within whose local limits the whole or any part of the subject-matter of the trust is situated.

Reliefs a Court May Grant

Section 92(1) lists the specific reliefs that may be claimed in such a suit:

removing a trustee;
appointing a new trustee;
vesting property in a trustee;
directing a removed trustee to deliver possession of trust property to the person entitled to it;
directing accounts and inquiries;
declaring what proportion of the trust property or its income is to be allocated to a particular object of the trust;
authorising the whole or part of the trust property to be sold, mortgaged, or exchanged;
settling a scheme for the administration of the trust; or
granting such further or other relief as the nature of the case may require.

Section 92(2) then imposes the bar that gives the section its practical force: subject to the Religious Endowments Act, 1863, no suit claiming any of these reliefs may be instituted except in conformity with sub-section (1) — that is, only by the Advocate-General or by two or more interested persons with the leave of the court.

Sub-section (3) — The Cy-Pres Power

Section 92(3) additionally empowers the court to alter the original purposes of a public charitable or religious trust and allow its property or income to be applied cy pres — that is, to the closest practicable alternative charitable purpose — in defined circumstances, such as where the original object has been substantially fulfilled, cannot be carried out, or can be more effectively achieved by applying the property to a similar purpose. This “cy-pres” power lets a trust continue serving a charitable end even where its precise original object has become impossible or impracticable to pursue, rather than the trust failing altogether.

When Section 92 Does and Does Not Apply

Because Section 92 restricts who may sue and requires prior leave, courts have been careful to confine it to cases that genuinely fall within its terms, rather than letting it be invoked — or, conversely, evaded — loosely. Three requirements recur in how the provision has been applied:

There must be an existing public trust of a charitable or religious character.
There must be either an alleged breach of that trust, or a need for the court’s directions for its administration.
The plaint must actually pray for one of the reliefs specifically listed in Section 92(1) — a suit that merely mentions a trust in passing, while seeking a different kind of relief (for example, a purely personal claim to property or money), does not automatically attract the section.

Key Case Law

Mahant Pragdasji Guru Bhagwandasji v. Patel Ishwarlalbhai Narsibhai (Supreme Court of India, 1952)

The Supreme Court held that a suit under Section 92 presupposes the existence of a public trust of a religious or charitable character, and can proceed only where there is a breach of such trust or the court’s directions are necessary for its administration. The plaintiff must additionally pray for one of the reliefs specifically mentioned in the section. Where the allegations of breach failed and no direction for administration was sought, the Court held that “the very foundation of a suit under Section 92” was wanting, and a bare declaration that certain properties were trust property could not be sustained as relief in such a suit.

Swami Parmatmanand Saraswati v. Ramji Tripathi (Supreme Court of India, 1974)

The Supreme Court reiterated that obtaining sanction or leave in relation to a suit does not, by itself, make the suit one under Section 92 — the plaint must actually pray for one of the reliefs the section specifies, and the substance of the suit, not merely its form, determines whether Section 92 governs it. Where a suit’s real object falls outside the reliefs listed in the section, procedural compliance with the leave requirement does not cure that defect.

Operation Asha v. Shelly Batra (Supreme Court of India, decided 5 August 2025)

In a more recent illustration, the Supreme Court considered whether a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 — rather than a trust registered as such — could be treated as a constructive trust for the purposes of Section 92. The Court held that an entity’s registration under a different statute does not, by itself, take it outside Section 92: where donations were entrusted for a public charitable purpose, and the society’s governing instrument vested its property in a governing body while barring the distribution of profits to members, the arrangement could bear the character of a constructive trust created for public charitable purposes, so that a suit alleging its breach could be brought under Section 92. The judgment underlines that courts look at the substance of how property is held and applied, rather than only at the label a charitable body carries.

Practical Points

A suit under Section 92 cannot be filed by a single interested individual acting alone; it takes the Advocate-General, or two or more persons with an interest in the trust acting together, and — in the latter case — the leave of the court obtained before the reliefs listed in the section can be claimed.
The relief actually claimed in the plaint is decisive. If the true object of the suit is a personal or proprietary claim rather than one of the reliefs listed in Section 92(1), the suit may fall outside the section altogether, even where it happens to involve a charitable or religious institution.
The bar under Section 92(2) is confined to the specific reliefs listed in sub-section (1); it does not, by itself, shut out every dispute in which a public trust happens to be mentioned.
Where a body is not formally registered as a trust — for example, a society or a committee — its assets can still be treated as impressed with a constructive trust for public charitable or religious purposes, depending on how the property is actually held and applied.
A person considering litigation over the management of a temple, mosque, gurdwara, church, or other public charitable institution may find it useful to first establish, with the help of a qualified advocate, whether the relief sought falls within Section 92 at all, since this affects who can be a plaintiff and what procedural steps must precede the filing of the suit.

Takeaway

Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 is a gatekeeping provision: it confines suits alleging breach of a public charitable or religious trust, or seeking the court’s directions for such a trust’s administration, to the Advocate-General or to two or more interested persons acting with the leave of the court, and it limits the relief obtainable to what the section itself lists. Whether a given dispute falls within Section 92 turns not on the label attached to the institution involved, but on the true nature of the trust and the relief actually sought.

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