DIWAN SINGH Vs. INDERJEET

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiffs second appeal in a suit for mandatory injunction directing the defendant to dose the windows opened by him in the rooms on the first floor of his house facing the plaintiff's property, and a prohibitory injunction restraining the defendant from discharging dirty water in the 5' wide lane between houses of the parties.

(2.) The parties are displaced persons having settled down at Dehradun after partition. Their respective houses are divided by a 5' wide lane. The suit was filed when the defendant sought to raise the construction on the first floor of his house. The plaintiff's house is to the south of the land while the defendant's house is to the north thereof. The plaintiff did not claim that the land was his private property, but he claimed that it was not a public street and only the owners and residents of the houses to the south of that lane had a right to use it. The closure of the two windows, opened by the defendant in the two rooms on the first floor of his house, was sought on the ground that they infringed the plaintiffs privacy and the defendant was sought to be prevented from discharging the dirty water of his house through the lane on the ground that it was not a public street and he could discharge the same through the public street to the north of his house.

(3.) So far as the alleged infringement of the right of privacy is concerned, it has been found by the two Courts below that only 1/2 part of the one of the two windows overlooks the open courtyard in the front of the plaintiff's house, learned counsel for the plaintiff urged that the right of privacy was a well-recognised customary right in this part of the country and the two Courts below were in error in not ordering the closure of the windows. Before looking into the cases relied upon by the learned counsel, I must also observe that the window overlooks the outer courtyard of the plaintiff's house and not the inner court-yard. That outer courtyard opens on the 5' wide lane between the houses of the parties and even before the construction of the first floor of the defendant's house, it was overlooked completely from the open roof of his house. There could be, in my opinion, no right of privacy in respect of an outer courtyard of one's house which opens on the street in the front of the house. The right of privacy used to be recognized in respect of the inner courtyard.