ACHAMMAGARI VENKATA REDDY Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short point for determination in this revision is whether the act attributed to the accused amounted to a public nuisance.

(2.) The word "nuisance" has been defined by Stephen to be anything done to the hurt or annoyance of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments of another and not amounting to trespass. (Stephen, III, 499). The word "nuisance" is derived from the French word 'nuire', to do hurt or to annoy. Blackstone describes (no cumentum) as something that "worketh hurt, inconvenience or damage". The offence of public nuisance may thus be analysed (i) it may be caused either by an act or illegal omission (ii) the effect thereof must be either injury, danger or annoyance (iii) actually caused either to the public or to that portion of the public who dwell or occupy property in the vicinity or (iv) threatened of necessity to persons who may have occasion to use any public right.

(3.) Bearing these principles in mind, let us examine what the accused did. The accusation is that on 2-6-1950, the petitioner before us raised the level of the public rastha in front of his northern house and also constructed a cross bund across the rastha at the boundary between the two houses with the result that the flow of rain-water northernwards through the rastha was impeded, if not completely obstructed and the water began to stagnate in the rastha in front of the southern house, causing annoyance to the complainant and the other residents of the village entitled to use the rastha.