Jurisprudence - 2 (CBSE (UGC) NET)

Salomon v Salomon and Co Ltd is a landmark UK company law case. The effect of the Lords' unanimous ruling was to uphold firmly the doctrine of corporate personality, as set out in the Companies Act, 1862. Creditors of an insolvent company could not sue the company's shareholders to pay up outstanding debts.

All the above mentioned options come under 'legal personality'. They can sue and be sued. 

Res nullius means that which belongs to no one. Res nullius belongs to him, who first obtains the possession.

Possession is nine-tenths of law is an expression meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something or difficult to enforce if one does not.

Legal personality may be granted to entities other than individual human beings, e.g. a group of human beings, a fund or an idol. Twenty men may form a corporation which may sue and be sued in the corporate name. An idol may be regarded as legal persona in itself or a particular fund may be incorporated.

Possession over a thing may be mediate or immediate. A thing possessed by a person directly or personally is said to be in immediate posses­sion while a thing possessed by a person through another is said to be in mediate possession.

Mr. William Paton said that ‘an unborn child has no legal entity because it is rightless'. Under English law, an unborn child does not have a legal entity and has no right over its mother's decision to abort it. 

The intention to exclude others from the control of property is an essential element of factual possession. The intention to possess the property exclusively implies the intention to exclude all others including the true owner, whether known or unknown, to the adverse possessor.

Some provisions of 'Specific Relief Act and Civil Procedure Code' deals with the procedure to protect possession in India.

The Supreme Court, after the judgment in the Kesavananda Bharati case, has adopted the view of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles being complementary to each other, each supplementing the other's role in aiming at the same goal of establishing a welfare state by means of social revolution.

Legal Right is a right bestowed onto a person by a given legal system. Legal rights are rights which exist under the rules of legal systems or by virtue of decisions of suitably authoritative bodies within them. Violation of legal right is punishable.

Right to reputation is a right in rem. A right in rem is available against the world at large. It is called “real right”. 

Reformative theory is the recommended theory of punishment in view of human rights. This theory is the most humane of all the theories which aim to reform the legal offenders by individual treatment. The idea behind this theory is that no one is a born criminal and criminals are also humans. Under this theory, it is believed that if the criminals are trained and educated, they can be transformed into law abiding citizens.

In adverse possession, the owner of the property loses its ownership over that. 

Retributive theory is a theory of punishment. It is based on the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Retribute means to give in turn. The object of this theory is to make the criminal realise the suffering of the pain by subjecting him to the same kind of pain as he had inflicted on the victim. This theory aims at taking a revenge, rather than social welfare and transformation. In expiatory theory, the offender expiates or repents and realises his mistake, he must be forgiven. Thus, both deal with making the criminal realise his/her mistake/crime.