Property - Indian Laws - General

Expression property In Black s Law Dictionary (6th Edition, 1990), the expression property has been given the following meanings: Property. -That which is peculiar or proper to any person; that which belongs exclusively to one. In the strict legal sense, an aggregate of rights which are guaranteed and protected by the Government. Fulton Light, Heat Power Co. v. State 65 Misc. Rep. 263, 121 N.Y.S. 536. The term is said to extend to every species of valuable right and interest. More specifically, ownership; the unrestricted and exclusive right to a thing; the right to dispose of a thing in every legal way, to possess it, to use it, and to exclude every one else from interfering with it. That dominion or indefinite right of use or disposition which one may lawfully exercise over particular things or subjects. The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing. The highest right of man can have to anything; being used to refer to that right which one has to lands or tenements, goods or chattels, which no way depends on another man s courtesy. The word is also commonly used to denote everything which is the subject of ownership, corporeal or incorporeal, tangible or intangible, visible or invisible, real or personal; everything that has an exchangeable value or which goes to make up wealth or estate. It extends to every species of valuable right and interest, and includes real and personal property, easements, franchises, and incorporeal hereditaments, and includes every invasion of one s property rights by actionable wrong. Labberton v. Cas. Co. of America, 53 Wash. 2d 180, 332 P. 2d. 250, 252, 254. Property embraces everything which is or may be the subject of ownership, whether a legal ownership, or whether beneficial, or a private ownership. Davis v. Davis. Tex. Civ. App., 495 S.W. 2d 607, 611. Term includes not only ownership and possession but also the right of use and enjoyment of lawful purposes. Hoffmann v. Kinealy, Mo., 389 S.W. 2d. 745, 752. Property, within constitutional protection, denotes group of rights inhering in citizen s relation to physical thing, as right to possess, use and dispose of it. Cereghino v. State by and through State Highway Commission, 230 Or., 439, 370 P. 2d 694, 697. Goodwill is property , Howell v. Bowden, Tex Civ. App., 368 S.W. 2d 842, 848; as is an insurance policy and rights incident thereto, including a right to the proceeds, Harris v. Harris, 83 N.M. 441, 493 P. 2d 407, 408. The dictionary further says property is either: real or immovable; or, personal or movable . It then proceeds to give the meaning of the expression absolute property , common property , intangible property , movable property , personal property , private property and public property among others. The above definition shows the wide meaning attached to the expression. It is said to extend to every species of valuable right and interest. It denotes every thing which is the subject of ownership, corporeal or incorporeal, tangible or intangible, visible or invisible, real or personal. It includes everything that has an extendable value . It extends to every species of valuable right and interest. In the Dictionary of Commercial Law by A.H. Hudson (published by Butterworths, 1983). It reads: Property: In commercial law this may carry its ordinary meaning of the subject-matter of ownership, e.g., in bankruptcy referring to the property of the debtor divisible amongst creditors. But elsewhere as in sale of goods it may be used as a synonym for ownership and lesser rights in goods. The Sale of Goods Act, 1979, s. 2(1) makes transfer of property central to sale. Section 61(1) provides that property means the general property in goods, and not merely a special property. General Property is tantamount to ownership; bailees who have possession and not ownership and others with limited interests are said to have a special property as their interest. Jowitt s Dictionary of English Law (Sweet Maxwell Limited, 1977) Volume I also sets out the meaning of the expression property as well as the meaning of the expression general property and special property . We may set them out: Property (Norm. Fr. proprete; Lat. proprietas; proprius, one s own), the highest right a man can have to anything, being that right which one has to lands or tenements, goods or chattels which does not depend on another s courtesy. In its largest sense property signifies things and rights considered as having a money value, especially with reference to transfer or succession, and to their capacity of being injured. Property includes not only ownership, estates, and interests in corporeal things, but also rights such as trade marks, copyrights, patents, and rights in personam capable of transfer or transmission, such as debts. Property is of two kinds, real property (q.v.) and personal property (q.v.). Property in reality is acquired by entry, conveyance, or devise; and in personality, by many ways, but most usually by gift, bequest, or sale. Under the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 205, property includes anything in action and any interest in real or personal property. There must be a definite interest; a mere expectancy as distinguished from a conditional interest is not a subject of property. Property also signifies a beneficial right in or to a thing. Sometimes the term is used as equivalent to ownership; as where we speak of the right of property as opposed to the right of possession (q.v.), or where we speak of the property in the goods of a deceased person being vested in his executor. The term was chiefly used in this sense with reference to chattels (Finch, Law 176). Property in this sense is divided into general and special or qualified. General property i s that which every absolute owner has (Co. Litt. 145b.). See Ownership. Special property has two meanings . First, it may mean that the subject- matter is incapable of being in the absolute ownership of any person. Thus a man may have a property in deer in a park, hares or rabbits in a warren, fish in a pond, etc., but it is only a special or qualified property, for if at any time they regain their natural liberty his property instantly ceases, unless they have animus revertendi (2 B1. Comm. 391). See Animals Ferae Naturae......... VIKAS SALES CORPORATION AND ANOTHER VERSUS COMMISSIONER OF COMMERCIAL TAXES AND ANOTHER - 1996 (5) TMI 363 - SUPREME COURT (LB)