Supreme Court: following nature of possession may entitle a trespasser to exercise the right of private defence of property-Ram Rattan v. State of U.P. (1977)

Published on: April 09, 13:33 IST

Court: Supreme Court of India

Citation: Ram Rattan v. State of U.P. (1977)

Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that the following nature of possession may entitle a trespasser to exercise the right of private defence of property and the true owner will have no right of private defence:-

1. That the trespasser must be in actual physical possession of property over a sufficiently long period;
2. That the possession must be to the knowledge either express or implied of the owner or without any attempt at concealment and which contains an element of animus possendie. The nature of possession of the trespasser would however be a matter to be decided on facts and circumstances of each case;
3. The process of dispossession of the true owner by the trespasser must be complete and final and must be acquiesced in by the true owner; and
4. That one of the usual tests to determine the quality of settled possession, in the case of culturable land, would be whether or not the trespasser, after having taken possession; had grown any crop. If the crop had been grown by the trespasser, then even the true owner has no right to destroy the crop grown by the trespasser and take forcible possession.

We, however, think that this is not what this Court meant in defining the nature of the settled possession. It is indeed difficult to lay down any hard and fast rule as to when the possession of a trespasser can mature into a settled possession. But what this Court really meant was that the possession of a trespasser must be effective, undisturbed and to the knowledge of the owner or without any attempt at concealment. For instance a stray or a casual act of possession would not amount to settled possession. There is no special charm or magic in the word ‘settled possession’ nor is it a ritualistic formula which can be confined in a strait-jacket but it has been used to mean such clear and effective possession of a person, even if he is a trespasser, who gets the right under the criminal law to defend his property against attack even by the true owner …

Drafted By Abhijit Mishra