KASTURILAL RALIA RAM V STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

FACTS OF THE CASE-

• UP Police constables took into care Ralia Smash on doubt of being in ownership of stolen property.
• His property, counting gold, silver and diviners, was seized and kept in malkhana (police care) till the transfer of case. Before long, he was discharged on safeguard and they returned as if the seized silver to him.
• When police officers refused to return seized gold, he recorded the display suit against the respondent claiming that the gold seized from him ought to either be returned to him, or its esteem ought to be requested to be paid to him in conjunction with intrigued by harms and future interest.
• They fought they were not at risk to return either the gold or pay the cash esteem of gold with intrigued. The respondent denounced Mohammad Amir, who was at that point the head constable and malkhana’s in-charge, that he flew absent to Pakistan with the gold and a few other cash.
• Case has been enlisted beneath S. 409 of Indian Correctional Code and S. 29 of the Police Act against Mohammad Amir, but nothing successful might be done in spite of the finest endeavours made by the police department.
• The respondent argued State might not be held blameworthy for carelessness. The trial Court found in favour of the offended party and requested a declare to pay cash esteem of gold.
• On offer by the litigants, HC withheld choice of trial Court and held the respondent not blameworthy of carelessly losing the plaintiff’s gold. The offended party (appealing party in this) challenged the rightness of this declare in this Court.

ISSUE OF THE CASE-

Was the defendant at fault in managing the money confiscated from Lalia Ram and detained by the Malkana Police?

JUDGEMENT-

1. Justice Gajendragadkar: SC held the State was not liable as police officers did the act in the exercise of sovereign powers. By holding the power to arrest a person, to search for him, and to seize his property are powers conferred on the police officers by statute as sovereign powers.
2.  Sovereign power is a legal doctrine by which the State is immune from civil suit or form criminal prosecution. It adapted this archaic concept of sovereign power from British jurisprudence that “the king can do no wrong”.

The Supreme Court in the present case, after considering all the evidence and appeals rose from the side of appellants, observed that “The powers to arrest a person, to search him, to seize property found with him, are powers conferred on specified officers by statute and are powers which could be properly characterized as sovereign powers.  Therefore, though the negligent act was committed by the employees of the respondent-State during their employment, the claim against the State could not be sustained, because, the employment in question was of the category which could claim the special characteristic of sovereign power.”

Further justifying the reasons given by the High Court in the decision said that on the basis that the act which gave rise to the claim for damages had been done by a public servant who was authorized by a statute to exercise his powers, and the discharge of the said function can be referred to the delegation of the sovereign power of the State, and as such the criminal act which gave rise to the action, could not validly sustain a claim for damages against the State. It will thus be clear that the basic principle enunciated by Peacock C. J. in 1861 has been consistently followed by judicial decisions in dealing with the question about the State’s liability in respect of negligent or tortious acts committed by public servants employed by the State.

Recalling the decision in the Vidhyawati case, this court stated that, in dealing with such cases, it must be borne in mind that when the State pleads immunity against claims damages resulting from injury caused by negligent acts of its servants, the area of employment referable to sovereign powers must be strictly determined. Before such a plea is upheld, the Court must always find that the impugned act was committed in the course of an undertaking or employment which is referable to the exercise of sovereign power or the exercise of delegated sovereign power; and in the Vidhyawati case, the alleged actions could not claim such a status. The employment of a driver to drive the jeep car for the use of a civil servant is itself an activity that is not connected in any manner with the sovereign power of the State at all. That is the basis on which the decision must be deemed to have been founded; and it is this basis which is absent in the case before us.

Taking a narrow view of the basis on which the area of the state immunity against such claims must be limited, the court observed that “The Governments of the States, as well as the Government of India, naturally and legitimately enter into many commercial and other undertakings and activities which have no relation with the traditional concept of Governmental activities in which the exercise of sovereign power is involved. It is necessary to limit the area of these affairs of the State about the exercise of sovereign power so that if acts are committed by Government employees about other activities which may be conveniently described as non- governmental or non-sovereign, citizens who have a cause of action for damages should not be precluded from making their claim against the State”

CONCLUSION-

Tort law in India is a result of the creation of precedents and the common law existent. It is not codified as such.

 Development of vicarious liability of the state:

The journey of Article 300 can be traced back to The Government of India Act, 1858, which was the parent source of the law relating to the liability of the Government. Section 65 of the said Act is as follows:

“The Secretary of State in Council shall and may sue and be sued as well in India as in England by the name of the Secretary of State in Council as a body corporate; and all persons and bodies politic shall and may have and take the same suits, remedies, and proceedings. legal and equitable, against the Secretary of State in Council of India as they could have done against the said Company; and the property and effects hereby vested in Her Majesty for the Government of India, or acquired for the said purposes, shall be subject and liable to the same judgments and executions as they would while vested in the said Company have been liable to in respect of debts and liabilities lawfully contracted and incurred by the said Company.”

 Article 300 of the Constitution originated from Section 176 of the Government of India Act, 1935. Under this section, the liability was coextensive with that of Secretary of State for India. The Government of India Act, 1915, in turn, made it coextensive with that of the East India Company.

Application of the concept in India

The first decision which is treated as a leading authority on the subject and object of the present case was pronounced by the Supreme Court at Calcutta in 1861 in the case of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company v. The Secretary of State for India – a judgment pronounced by Chief Justice Peacock.

“This case recognized the material distinction between acts committed by the servants employed by the State where such acts refer to the exercise of sovereign powers delegated to public servants and acts committed by public servants which are not referable to the delegation of any sovereign powers. If a tortious act is committed by a public servant and it gives rise to a claim for damages, the question to ask is: was the tortious act committed by the public servant in discharge of statutory functions which refer to and based on the delegation of the sovereign powers of the State to such public servant? If the answer is in the affirmative, the action for damages for loss caused by such a tortious act will not lie. On the other hand, if the tortious act has been committed by a public servant in discharge of duties assigned to him, not by the delegation of any sovereign power, an action for damages would lie. The act of the public servant committed by him during his employment is an act of a servant who might have been employed by a private individual for the purpose. This distinction is sometimes not borne in mind while discussing questions of the State’s liability arising from tortious acts committed by public servants. That is why the clarity and precision with which this distinction was emphasized by Chief Justice Peacock as early as 1861 has been recognized as a classic statement on this subject.”

Thus the Supreme Court here in Kasturilal Ralia Ram Jain v. The State Of Uttar Pradesh has followed the rule laid down in P.S.O. Steam Navigation case by distinguishing Sovereign and non-Sovereign functions of the state and held that the act of police officers is a Sovereign act, therefore the State is not liable.

This case analysis is written by Ananaya Shee of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management
Studies, Bangalore, intern at Legal Vidhiya.

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