Necessity As A Defence Under Law Of Torts

Rishabh Pandey, Symbiosis Law School, Noida

ABSTRACT

A person (agent) is said to be performing an act under necessity when situations forces him to violate the rights and interests of others i.e. the victim to protect his own, someone else’s, or the interests of a various others that may or may include that person (agent) . The main focus of this research will be to find out the best way to understand the compulsion that forces the person (agent) to violate another’s (victim) rights or interests.

Almost every type of trespass is justified in cases of public necessity. It could be used when an innocent person is employed with reasonable force by defendant to prevent a deliberate and approaching threat to a public interest. But if it’s defendants’ own fault which has caused to this scenario of necessity, then his defence will not be applicable.

When can be Necessity as a defence is used? Answer to this question could be easily understood by an example. Suppose a person is starving and he is at stage of dying, so he steals a packet of bread; even though this example has a misconduct of stealing but still it was necessary for him to do so to save his life. So, this type of cases brings a very good question in front of judiciary that where is this defence applicable and where not? Philosophers have their own opinions; they have focused on conceptual issues focusing on the defence of necessity without saying too much about the defence itself.