What an Easement Is

In one line

An easement is a right one landowner has to do something on his neighbour's land, or to stop his neighbour doing something on it, for the benefit of his own land.

In exam wording: section 4 provides that an easement is a right which the owner or occupier of certain land possesses, as such, for the beneficial enjoyment of that land, to do and continue to do something, or to prevent and continue to prevent something being done, in or upon, or in respect of, certain other land not his own.

Why the definition is built around two pieces of land

An easement is not a personal privilege. It exists because one piece of land needs something from another, and it belongs to whoever owns the land that needs it.

That is what the words "as such" carry. The right is held in the capacity of owner or occupier of the benefited land, and not as an individual. It follows that the right passes with the land when the land is sold, and that it cannot be detached and sold on its own, which is the rule in section 6(a) of the Transfer of Property Act, taught in [What May Be Transferred].

Sections 1 to 3: what the Act is, and what it leaves alone

Section 1 provides that the Act may be called the Indian Easements Act, 1882.

Section 2: savings. Nothing in the Act is deemed to affect:

(a) any right of the Government to regulate the collection, retention and distribution of the water of rivers and streams flowing in natural channels, and of natural lakes and ponds, or of water flowing, collected, retained or distributed in or by any channel or work constructed at the public expense for irrigation;

(b) any customary or other right, not being a licence, in or over immovable property which the Government, the public or any person may possess irrespective of other immovable property; or

(c) any right acquired, or arising out of a relation created, before this Act came into force.

Clause (b) is the one that matters for a student, and it is the statutory home of two things this chapter has already met. A right possessed irrespective of other immovable property has no dominant heritage, so it is not an easement at all; and a customary right, such as a village right to draw water or to hold a fair on particular land, is preserved by the Act rather than governed by it. Section 18 then allows a customary easement, which is different: that is a right annexed to a dominant heritage by local custom.