MT JARAOO Vs. SRI NATH BYAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal arising out of a suit for demolition of a certain construction erected by the defendant on a plot of land lying to the south of the plaintiffs house. The plaintiff alleged that this construction had interfered with the passage of light and air into his house, that it had also involved an invasion of a right of privacy, inasmuch as the defendant had built a balcony attached to the new construction, from which it was possible for him to look through the windows in the plaintiff's house and watch the movements of the inmates of that house. On these allegations, along with a relief for demolition of the disputed construction, the Plaintiff also asked for an injunction restraining the defendant from interfering with her right of privacy and also an injunction requiring the defendant to remove that part of the construction which had covered up a chajja in the plaintiff's house.

(2.) Both the Courts below dismissed the suit on certain concurrent findings. They held that the windows in the plaintiff's house, not having existed for more than 20 years, she was not entitled to claim air and light passing through them from the side of the defendant's house, that the chajja being nearly an ornament to the plaintiff's house, did not entitle her to claim any relief by way of easement and that, although there was a right of privacy in the abstract, it could not be claimed in the present case as it was possible for the plaintiff herself to avoid its infringement by screening up the windows in her house.

(3.) So far as the question of the passage of air and light is concerned, Mr. Jagdish Swarup, learned Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant, has very frankly not taken it before me, obviously on the ground that the finding of the Courts below that the windows in the plaintiff's house had not existed for more than 20 years would have been fatal to such a contention. On the other two points, he has addressed me in some detail.