RAMAKRISHNA MENON Vs. VELUNNI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision is against an order staying the suit under S.3 of Act 30 of 1975. The plaintiff is the revision petitioner. The suit is one for a declaration of plaintiffs easement right over plaint C-schedule pathway, for ingress and egress to plaint A and B schedules and the Ganapathy Temple and for consequential relief of injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with the plaintiff's right of way therein, for a mandatory injunction directing defendants 1 to 5 and other defendants under them to remove the shed put up by them in the C-schedule property and the plantains and arecanut plants and other plants planted by them therein with a view to obstruct plaintiff's right of way, and alternatively in case of defendants' refusal to do so to allow the plaintiff to remove them and to recover the costs which may thereby be incurred by the plaintiff, for recovery of an amount of Rs. 2,058/- being damage sustained by the plaintiff due to misappropriation of the income of plaint A and B schedule properties by the defendants who are alleged to have obstructed the right of way of the plaintiff by committing the tortious act of putting up a shed over the pathway and other incidental reliefs and costs.

(2.) The court below has merely stated:

(3.) S.2(4)(c) of Act 30 of 1975 exempts any tortious liability from the ambit of the debt as defined in the Act. What exactly is a tortious liability A tort is a species of civil injury or wrong. A civil wrong is one which gives rise to civil proceedings -- proceedings, that is to say, which have as their purpose the enforcement of some right claimed by the plaintiff as against the defendant. Although a tort is a civil injury, not all civil injuries arc torts, for as Salmond says, no civil injury is to be classed as a tort unless the appropriate remedy for it is an action for damages Such an action is an essential characteristic of every true tort. Discussing the nature of a tort Salmond in his work on Law of Torts states a tort is a civil wrong for which the remedy is a common law action for unliquidated damages, and which is not exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach of a trust or other merely equitable obligation. Trespass to land, committing of private nuisance are all civil wrongs. Wrongful disturbance of an easement or other servitude appurtenant to land is a private nuisance. Suit for damages for such wrongs are clearly action on tortious liabilities.