This document provides definitions and explanations of tort from several legal experts and sources. In 3 sentences: Tort is defined as a civil wrong or infringement of a private individual's rights that results in injury and allows for compensation to be claimed. It involves the breach of a legal duty owed to people generally, as opposed to a breach of contract. Several sources note that while common law principles of tort from other countries can be applied in India, the legal system must also evolve new principles to address challenges within the local context.

1. Definitions of Tort
Prof Govind Prasad Goyal, IMS Law College, Noida

2. Fraser defines tort as
• “Tort is an infringement of a right in rem of a private
individual giving the right of compensation at the suit of
the injured party.”

3. Winfield defines torts as
• “Tortious liability arises from the breach of a duty primarily
fixed by law. This duty is towards persons generally and its
breach is redressible by an action for unliquidated
damages.”

4. According to Salmond
• “Tort is a civil wrong for which the remedy is a common
law action for unliquidated damages, and which is not
exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach of a
trust, or other merely equitable obligation.”

5. Pollock’s contribution to the
definition is
• “Tort is an act or omission (not merely the breach of a
duty arising out of personal relations, or undertaken by a
contract which is related to harm suffered by a
determinate person, giving rise to a civil remedy which is
not an action of contract”

6. Section 2(m) Limitation Act of
1963 defines torts as
• “Tort means a civil wrong which is not exclusively a breach
of contract or trust”.

7. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, Justice
Bhagwati observed-
• “We have to evolve new principles and lay down new norms which
will adequately deal with new problems which arise in a highly
industrialized economy. We cannot allow our judicial thinking to be
constructed by reference to the law as it prevails in England or for
the matter of that in any foreign country. We are certainly prepared
to receive light from whatever source it comes but we have to build
our own jurisprudence.”

8. SCI in Rajkot Municipal Corporation vs
Manjulben Jayantilal Nakum & Ors on 17 January, 1997
• In the absence of statutory law or established principles of law laid by this
Court (read Supreme Court of India) or High Courts consistent with Indian
conditions and circumstances, this Court selectedly applied the common
law principles evolved by the courts in England on grounds of justice,
equity and good conscience (vide Ramanbhai Prabhatbhai's case).
Common law principles of tort evolved by the courts in England may be
applied in India to the extent of suitability and applicability to the Indian
conditions.

9. The Supreme Court of Canada in the
case of Hall v Herbert,
• “It is difficult to define the nature of tort.” Indeed, one of
the greatest writers in the field, W.L. Prosser has
expressed the opinion that it should not be defined.

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