What are the changing modes of status of natural person to legal person in Indian law?

In Indian law, the transition of the status of a natural person to that of a legal person typically occurs through various legal mechanisms. Here are some common ways in which this transition takes place:

• 1) Birth and Death:

• Natural Person Status: A person is considered a natural person from birth until death.

• Legal Person Status: Upon the death of an individual, their estate may continue to exist as a legal person for the purpose of inheritance, distribution of assets, and settling liabilities.

• 2) Incorporation of Companies:

• Natural Person Status: Individuals are natural persons by default.

• Legal Person Status: When individuals come together to form a company or a corporation, that entity is considered a legal person separate from its shareholders or members. The process of incorporation creates a distinct legal identity for the company.

Print Page

What is distinction between Double Capacity and Double Personality?

 

Law recognizes many different capacities in which a man may act. A man may have power to act in an official or representative capacity or he may act in his private capacity or on his own account.

The fact to be noticed is that if a man has two or more capacities it does not give him the power to enter into a legal transaction with himself. Double capacity differs from double personality. Law does not recognize double personality of the individual. For e.g. At common law, a man could not sue himself or contract with himself or convey property to himself even if he was acting on each side in a different capacity.

Print Page

What is Legal Status of Dead Man?

 

According to Salmond,“Dead man are no longer persons in the eye of the lan . They have laid down their legal personality with their lives, and are now as destitute of rights as of liabilities. They have no rights because they have no interests. They do not even remain the owner of their property until their successors enter upon their inheritance."

Print Page

What is basic concept of legal personality?

 

The main object of law is to regulate the relationship between individuals in the society. The law imposes certain duties on individuals for theprotection of interests of mankind. The law being concerned with regulating the human conduct, the concept of legal personality constitutes an important subject-matter ofjurisprudence because there cannot be rights and duties without a person.

Origin of the concept of  legal  personality

The word “ person” is derived from the Latin word persona which meant a mask worn by actors playing different roles in a drama.Generally, there are two types of person which the law recognizes, namely,Natural and artircial.One of the most recognized artificial person is corporation.

Print Page

Whether Ganga and Yamuna Rivers are juristic person?

 With the development of the society where the interaction of individuals fell short to upsurge the social development, the concept of juristic person was devised and created by human laws for the purposes of the society. A juristic person, like any other natural person is in law also conferred with rights and obligations and is dealt with in accordance with law. In other words, the entity acts like a natural person but only through a designated person, as their Lordships have held in the judgments cited hereinabove, that for a bigger thrust of socio-political-scientific development, evolution of a fictional personality to be a juristic person becomes inevitable. This may be any entity, living inanimate, objects or things. It may be a religious institution or any such useful unit which may impel the Courts to recognise it. This recognition is for subserving the needs and faith of the society. Corpus Juris Secundum, Vol. 6, page 778 explains the concept of juristic persons/artificial persons thus: “Artificial persons. Such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government, which are called corporations or bodies politic.” A juristic person can be any subject matter other than a human being to which the law attributes personality for good and sufficient reasons. Juristic persons being the arbitrary creations of law, as many kinds of juristic persons have been created by law as the society require for its development. (See Salmond on Jurisprudence 12th Edition Pages 305 and 306). Thus, to protect the recognition and the faith of society, Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are required to be declared as the legal persons/living persons.

17. All the Hindus have deep Astha in rivers Ganga and Yamuna and they collectively connect with these rivers. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are central to the existence of half of Indian population and their health and well being. The rivers have provided both physical and spiritual sustenance to all of us from time immemorial. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna have spiritual and physical sustenance. They support and assist both the life and natural resources and health and well-being of the entire community. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are breathing, living and sustaining the communities from mountains to sea.

18. The constitution of Ganga Management Board is necessary for the purpose of irrigation, rural and urban water supply, hydro power generation, navigation, industries. There is utmost expediency to give legal status as a living person/legal entity to Rivers Ganga and Yamuna r/w Articles 48-A and 51A(g) of the Constitution of India.

19. Accordingly, while exercising the parens patrie jurisdiction, the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna, all their tributaries, streams, every natural water flowing with flow continuously or intermittently of these rivers, are declared as juristic/legal persons/living entities having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person in order to preserve and conserve river Ganga and Yamuna.

In the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital

(Before Rajiv Sharma and Alok Singh, JJ.)

Mohd. Salim 

v.

State of Uttarakhand & Others .…. Respondents

Writ Petition (Pil) No. 126 of 2014

Decided on March 20, 2017

Citation:2017 SCC OnLine Utt 367

Print Page

Distinction between interpretation by Jurisprudence and interpretation by court

The Court has to interpret a statute and apply it to the facts. Hans Kelsen in his Pure Theory of Law (P. 355) makes a distinction between interpretation by the science of law or jurisprudence on the one hand and interpretation by a law-applying organ (especially the court) on the other. According to him "jurisprudential interpretation i., purely cognitive ascertainment of the meaning of legal norms. In contradistinction to the interpretation by legal organs, jurisprudential interpretation does not create law". "The purely cognitive interpretation by jurisprudence is there- fore unable to fill alleged gaps in the law. The filling of a so-called gap in the law is a law-creating function that can only be performed by a law-applying organ; and the function of creating law is not performed by jurisprudence interpreting law. Jurisprudential interpretation can do no more than exhibit all possible meanings of a legal norm. Jurisprudence as cognition of law cannot decide between the possibilities exhibited by it, but must leave the decision to the legal organ who, according to the legal order, is authorised to apply the law." According to the author if law is to be applied by a legal organ, he must determine the meaning of the norms to be applied; he must 'interpret' those norms (P. 348). Interpretation therefore is an intel- lectual activity which accompanies the process of law appli- cation in its advance from a higher level to a lower level. According to him, the law to be applied is a frame. "There are cases of intended or unintended indefiniteness at the lower level and several possibilities are open to the appli- cation of law." The traditional theory believes that the statute, applied to a concrete case, can always supply only one correct decision and that the positive--legal 'correct- ness' of this decision is based on the statute itself. This theory describes the interpretive procedure as if it con- sisted merely in an intellectual act of clarifying or under- standing; as if the law-applying organ had to use only his reason but not his will, and as if by a purely intellectual activity, among the various existing possibilities only one correct choice could be made in accordance with positive law. According to the author: "The legal act applying a legal norm may be performed in such a way that it conforms

(a) with the one or the other of the different meanings of the legal norm, (b) with the will of the norm creating authority that is to be determined somehow', (c) with the expression which the norm-creating authority has chosen, (d) with the one or the other of the contradictory norms; or (e) the concrete case to which the two contradictory norms refer may be decided under the assumption that the two contradictory norms annul each other. In all these cases, the law to be applied constitutes only a frame within which several applications are possible, whereby every act is legal that stays within the frame."

Supreme Court of India

Punjab Land Development ... vs Presiding Officer, Labour ... on 4 May, 1990

Equivalent citations: 1990 SCR (3) 111, 1990 SCC (3) 682

Bench: Mukharji, Sabyasachi (Cj), Ray, B.C. (J), Kania, M.H., Saikia, K.N. (J), Agrawal, S.C. (J)

Print Page