Extra-Judicial Remedies

In one line

In some situations the law allows a person to put a wrong right himself, without going to court, provided he uses no more force than is necessary.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the extra-judicial remedies, also called remedies by the act of the party or self-help, are self-defence, expulsion of a trespasser, re-entry on land, recaption of goods, abatement of a nuisance, and distress damage feasant; each is available only within narrow limits, each requires that no more force be used than is reasonably necessary, and a person who exceeds those limits commits a tort himself.

1. Self-defence

A person may use reasonable force to defend his own body, the body of another, and property in his possession against an unlawful attack. Chapter [General Defences II] works out the conditions, and the penal law states the same right in sections 34 and 35 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023: nothing is an offence which is done in the exercise of the right of private defence, and every person has a right, subject to the restrictions in section 37, to defend his own body and the body of any other person against any offence affecting the human body, and property, whether movable or immovable, of himself or of any other person.

The limits. The force must be necessary and proportionate, it must be used while the danger continues, and property may never be defended by force intended to cause death.

2. Expulsion of a trespasser

An occupier may request a trespasser to leave and, after giving him a reasonable opportunity to go, may put him out using no more force than is reasonably necessary.

The limits. The request comes first, except where the entry was violent; the force must be reasonable; and a person who entered lawfully must be given a reasonable time to leave before he is treated as a trespasser at all.

3. Re-entry on land

A person entitled to possession may enter and retake the land, using no more force than is reasonably necessary.

This is the most dangerous of the six, and it must be read with section 6 of the Specific Relief Act 1963, which gives a person dispossessed otherwise than in due course of law a summary suit to recover possession within six months, in which even a true owner's title is no defence. So a person who takes the law into his own hands may find himself ordered to give the land back and left to sue on his title afterwards. Chapter [Remedies for Trespass to Land] works that out.

4. Recaption of goods

A person entitled to the immediate possession of goods may retake them from a person who has wrongfully taken or detained them.