Trust cannot sue or to be sued in a court of law, even though the trustees can maintain or defend any suit for the preservation and protection of the trust property, says the High Court of Kerala in Crl. M. C. No. 3799 of 2018 delivered on 6th day of February, 2019.
Trust is not like a juristic person or a legal entity. A juristic person has a legal existence of its own and hence it is capable of suing and being sued in a court of law. Hence a Trust is not like a body corporate, which has a legal existence of its own.
As per Section 3 of the Indian Trusts Act 1881, a Trust is an obligation annexed to the ownership of property, and arising out of a confidence reposed in and accepted by the owner, or declared and accepted by him, for the benefit of another, or of another and the owner.
The person who reposes or declares the confidence is called the author of the Trust, the person who accepts the confidence is called the trustee, and the person for whose benefit the confidence is accepted, is called the beneficiary. The subject – matter of the trust is called trust – property.
The Court relied on the ratio in the judgement in Pratibha Pratisthan & Others v Manager, Canara Bank & Others [AIR 2017 SC 1303], which says that a Trust is not a person, in arriving at this decision.
