BHAGWAN DAS Vs. ZAMURRAD HUSAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendants appeal arising out of a suit by plaintiffs to have certain windows and doors made by the defendants closed. The plaintiffs and defendants owned houses on the opposite sides of a street. It has been found to be at its maximum in the neighbourhood of the houses 17 feet in width. The locality is the town of Debai in the district of Bulandshahr. The plaintiffs house faced towards the east, the defendants towards the west. The plaintiffs had a two storied house, on the first floor, i.e., upper storey, of which the women folk of the house are said to, at any rate occasionally, spend their time. The defendants house was originally a single-storied house but some three or four years ago they proceeded to rebuild it, and a few months before suit they proceeded to add to it a second storey. It was the plaintiffs case that prior to the addition of this second storey there had been screen walls on the roof of the defendants house and that as a result no one from the defendants house had been able to see into the windows of the plaintiffs first floor. The plaintiffs complained that by the addition of this second storey to the defendants house the plaintiffs were aggrieved.

(2.) It appears that those who were responsible for drafting the plaint were a little uncertain as to how to state their grievance. There is a reference more than once to the plaintiffs right to light and air through the windows to this first floor, which look towards the east. The case was stated that the plaintiffs were obliged to shut these windows, because the defendants had so constructed their house that they were able to look into the first floor room and see the ladies, and that the result of their having to shut the windows was a dearth of light and air. There was, thus, no direct claim to right of privacy, but an allegation that an infringement of the right of privacy inevitably resulted in the loss of the right to light and air. This is how the plaintiffs stated their case. But the relief prayed for claimed that their right of privacy should be preserved. The trial Court held that there was no substantial inconvenience to the plaintiffs and dismissed the suit. The lower appellate Court held that there was such substantial inconvenience and decreed the suit.

(3.) The case came first before Mukerji, J., He referred to the decision of this Court in Gokul Prasad V/s. Radho [1888] 10 All. 358 Of this case he said: It has never been dissented from and thoroughly establishes the proposition that a right of privacy enjoyed by a party is sacred and cannot be interfered with.