Law of Torts and its Different Mode: A Critical Analysis

From very early times in England, the King could not be sued in his own courts and the maxim that King can no do wrong was invoked to negative the right of a subject to sue the king for redress of wrongs. The rigor of the immunity however was relaxed by making a petition of right available to a subject for redress only in respect of certain wrongs relating to contract or property. In the beginning, even the procedure by way of petition of right was cumbersome until it was modified by the Petitions of Right Act,1860. But this act did not alter the law relating to torts. When the officer or servant who committed the torts was known and was impleaded as defendant in an action, the Crown and stood by him and met his liability. In many cases, however, it was not possible to fix the liability upon a particular servant or officer of the Crown. The Device therefore, of impleading as defendant any officer of the Crown and depending the action in his name was adopted. But this practice was condemned by the House of Lords in Adam’s v/s Naylor, which was followed later in Royster v/s Cavey. These Judgments gave the immediate provocation to revive the bill of 1927 relating to Crown proceedings and finally led to the passing of the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947. The Perception of Law of Torts in Ancient India being different from what it is today, it laid greater emphasis on duties rather than rights of person. In 14th century a simple procedure for administration for justice was adopted by the British king. Though there was no compartalisation of wrongs like crime, torts, breach of contract etc. the administration of criminal justice was solely vested with the King’s court and action for trespass and other wrongs of civil nature were to be adjudicated by the common law courts which were otherwise termed as the court of common pleas. This change in the common law procedure finds expression in the Latin maxim ‘Ubi jus ibi remedium’, which means where there is a right, there is remedy. In other words where there is right it cannot be without a remedy and where there is no right there is no remedy this has clearly been expressed by the maxim ‘injuria sine damnum’ and ‘damnum sine injuria’.