Court move to ban bankrupt monk from monastery land

The first monk to be declared bankrupt in Hong Kong after he lost a ownership tussle over the Tsing Shan Monastery has been slapped with a writ demanding that he does not step foot in his former home.

In a High Court writ filed yesterday, the managing trustees of the Charitable Trust of Tsing Shan Monastery demand an injunction to restrain self-proclaimed abbot Pun Man-yau, alias Sik Kwok-wah, from its land and canteen.

Mr Pun's address was listed on the writ as the Tsing Shan Monastery, Tuen Mun, New Territories.

They were also seeking damages for trespassing.

Another defendant, Lau Shui-fong, was named in the writ but the nature of his relationship to Mr Pun was not given. His address also listed the monastery.

Hong Kong's oldest Buddhist monastery's assets are 12 parcels of land and $130 million, representing a payout for the resumption of one piece of land and interest accrued since December 1977.

Last September, Deputy Judge Poon Siu-chor, sitting in the Court of First Instance, granted a bankruptcy order against Mr Pun after he failed to pay almost $1.5 million in legal costs accrued in his failed ownership bid for the Taoist temple, Tsing Wan Kun, near the Tsing Shan Monastery.

Tsing Shan was founded in 1914 by Malaysian-Chinese businessman Chan Chun-ting and an employee, Cheung Shung-pak, after they bought the land from the To clan. But since the 1960s, ownership disputes have arisen between abbots and the To clan.

Mr Pun took over as abbot following the death of his uncle and then abbot, Mung Sung, in 1989.

In the early 1990s, the government stepped in to resolve whether the monastery was privately owned or a public temple and charitable property under Chinese customary law.

In May 2002, the marathon dispute was finally settled in the court after 39 years of litigation when Mr Justice David Yam Yee-kwan approved a trust under which HSBC Trustee (Hong Kong) Ltd was appointed as custodian trustee.

It followed another order, first made in November 1998, that Mr Pun must leave after Mr Justice Yam concluded he had no claim on the monastery as it 'was a religious institution for the benefit of the public at large'.