B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 2 Law of Torts 2026 Jan Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the meaning of "tort"; the statutory definition in section 2(m) of the Limitation Act 1963; the definitions of Salmond, Winfield and Fraser, each with its merit and its weakness; what the definitions together establish; a comparison of tort with crime and with breach of contract; decided cases; a conclusion.

Meaning of the word

The word tort comes from the Latin tortum, which means twisted or crooked. Through the French tort it came to mean a wrong. In law it means a particular kind of civil wrong. A civil wrong is one for which the person wronged sues in his own name and asks for compensation.

No writer has produced a definition that everyone accepts. Each definition looks at the subject from one side only. That is why the question asks us to evaluate them critically, which means to say what each one gets right and what it leaves out.

Merit. It points to the remedy that marks out tort. In a road accident nobody has agreed in advance what a broken leg is worth, so the court decides.

Weakness. It defines the wrong by its remedy. That is like defining a disease by its medicine. It also ignores other remedies. A plaintiff in nuisance often wants an injunction, which is a court order stopping the wrong, more than he wants money.

Winfield's definition

Winfield said that tortious liability arises from the breach of a duty primarily fixed by law. The duty is owed towards persons generally, and its breach is redressible by an action for unliquidated damages.

Merit. It explains where the duty comes from. Nobody agrees not to be run over; the law imposes that duty on every driver. It also separates tort from contract, where the parties fix the duty themselves.

Weakness. The duty is not always owed to "persons generally". In negligence it is owed only to persons who could foreseeably be harmed. Winfield also kept unliquidated damages as the test, so the objection to Salmond applies here too.

The Supreme Court summed up the same points in Jay Laxmi Salt Works (P) Ltd v. State of Gujarat, (1994) 4 SCC 1. A bund built by the State to reclaim land from the sea flooded and destroyed the plaintiff's salt works. The Court held that injury and damage are the two basic ingredients of a tort. It said the duty in tort is fixed by law and owed to persons generally, while in contract the parties fix it. It added that the law of torts is a developing law whose frontiers cannot be strictly barricaded. A developing subject cannot be held in one fixed definition, and that is the deepest criticism of all of them.

The proof is M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, AIR 1987 SC 1086. Oleum gas leaked from a factory in Delhi. The Supreme Court created a new rule of absolute liability for hazardous industries, which no earlier definition or case had contained.

Tort distinguished from crime

A passenger with a ticket may sue a bus company in contract or in tort. A pedestrian hit by the same bus has no contract and can sue only in tort.

Conclusion. Each definition is accurate from its own side and incomplete from the others. The Limitation Act defines by exclusion, Salmond by the remedy, Winfield by the source of the duty and Fraser by the right. A complete answer combines them. A tort is a civil wrong arising from a duty fixed by law, for which the court awards damages. It is not a mere breach of contract or of trust. Jay Laxmi Salt Works explains why no single definition can be final: the subject keeps growing. Tort differs from crime in its object, compensation rather than punishment, and from contract in the source of the duty, law rather than agreement.