Own, Ownership, Owned - Indian Laws - General

Terms Own , Ownership , Owned The terms own , ownership , owned are generic and relative terms. They have a wide and also a narrow connotation. The meaning would depend on the context in which the terms are used. Black s Law Dictionary (6th Edn.) defines owner as under: Owner. The person in whom is vested the ownership, dominion, or title of property; proprietor. He who has dominion of a thing, real or personal, corporeal or incorporeal, which he has a right to enjoy and do with as he pleases, even to spoil or destroy it, as far as the law permits, unless he be prevented by some agreement or covenant which restrains his right. The term is, however, a nomen generalissimum, and its meaning is to be gathered from the connection in which it is used, and from the subject-matter to which it is applied. The primary meaning of the word as applied to land is one who owns the fee and who has the right to dispose of the property, but the term also includes one having a possessory right to land or the person occupying or cultivating it. The term owner is used to indicate a person in whom one or more interests are vested for his own benefit. In the same dictionary, the term ownership has been defined to mean, inter alia, as Collection of rights to use and enjoy property, including right to transmit it to others. The right of one or more persons to possess or use a thing to the exclusion of others. The right by which a thing belongs to someone in particular, to the exclusion of all other persons. The exclusive right of possession, enjoyment, and disposal; involving as an essential attribute the right to control, handle, and dispose. Dias on Jurisprudence (4th Edn., at p. 400) states: The position, therefore, seems to be that the idea of ownership of land is essentially one of the better right to be in possession and to obtain it, whereas with chattels the concept is a more absolute one. Actual possession implies a right to retain it until the contrary is proved, and to that extent a possessor is presumed to be owner. Stroud s Judicial Dictionary gives several definitions and illustrations of ownership. One such definition is that the owner or proprietor of a property is the person in whom (with his or her assent) it is for the time being beneficially vested, and who has the occupation, or control, or usufruct, of it; e.g., a lessee is, during the term, the owner of the property demised. Yet another definition that has been given by Stroud is: owner applies to every person in possession or receipt either of the whole, or of any part, of the rents or profits of any land or tenement; or in the occupation of such land or tenement, other than as a tenant from year to year or for any less term or as a tenant at will . Mysore Minerals Ltd. M.G. Road, Bangalore v. Commissioners of Income Tax, Karnataka, Bangalore- 1999 (9) TMI 1 - SUPREME COURT In Black s Law Dictionary, VIth Ed., the ownership has been defined as Collection of rights to use and enjoy property, including right to transmit it to others. Therefore, ownership is de jure recognition of a claim to certain property. Possession is the objective realisation of ownership. It is the de facto exercise of a claim to certain property and a de facto counterpart of ownership. Possession of a right is the de facto relation of continuing exercise and enjoyment as opposed to the de jure relation of ownership. Possession is the de facto exercise of a claim to certain property. It is the external form in which claims normally manifest themselves. Possession is in fact what ownership is in right enforceable at law to or over the thing. A man s property is that which is his own to do what he likes with it. Those things are a man s property which are the object of ownership on his part. Ownership chiefly imports the right of exclusive possession and enjoyment of the thing owned. The owner in possession of the thing has the right to exclude all others from the possession and enjoyment of it. If he is wrongfully deprived of what he owns, the owner has a right to recover possession of it from the person who wrongfully gets into possession of it. The right to maintain or recover possession of a thing as against all others is an essential part of ownership. Ownership implies not so much the physical relation between the person and the thing as the relation between the person owning and the thing owned. Ownership is pre-eminently a right. The right to ownership of a property carries with it the right to its enjoyment, right to its access and of other beneficial enjoyment incidental thereto. If any obstruction or hindrance is caused for its enjoyment or use, the owner, of necessity, has the remedy to have it removed. If any obstruction is raised by putting up a construction pendente lite or prevents the passage or right to access to the property pendente lite, the plaintiff has been given right and the decree-holder is empowered to have it removed in execution without tortuous remedy of separate suit seeking mandatory injunction or for possession so as to avoid delay in execution or frustration and thereby defeat the decree.......... [B. GANGADHAR VERSUS B.G. RAJALINGAM- 1995 (5) TMI 292 - SUPREME COURT]