The document discusses the concept of 'title' as the foundation from which legal rights arise, explaining its origins, definitions, and implications in various legal contexts. It references legal scholars like Salmond, Austin, Holland, Justice Holmes, and Bentham, who provide differing perspectives on the relationship between titles and rights. Ultimately, it emphasizes that titles are crucial for establishing the basis of ownership and legal entitlements.

1. TITLE
Definition, Nature and Implications
Introduction: The term title is an English word which is derived from the word ‘titulus’
of Roman law and ‘titre’ of French law. Every right arises from a title. Here, the term
right has a wide meaning to include privileges, powers and immunities as well. A title
may be described as a source from which a right originates. A title means a set of facts
by reason of which a right has become the subject-matter of ownership. It is a link
between a person and an object. Legal rights do not come out of nothing or vacuum.
They come from some basis like a document, law, devices, facts, events or acts; these are
called titles. Thus, titles are the roots, origin, foundations from which rights are born.
Is right = title?
Salmond: Salmond holds that title is the fifth element of a legal right. He underlines the
importance of title by quoting, “title is the de facto antecedent, of which right is the de
jure consequent”. He also states that every legal right has a title, that is to say, certain
facts or events by reason of which the right has become vested in its owner. If the law
confers a right upon one man which it does not confer upon another, the reason is that
certain facts are true of him which are not true of the other and these facts are the title of
the right. There are certain rights which a person acquires by birth, namely, right to life,
liberty, reputation etc. whereas there are others which man acquires by contract,
judgment of court or other transaction. In either case, there must be some facts (that is,
title) from which the right takes its roots.
Austin: Title is not right itself, but it is an element of right. He distinguishes rights and
titles in the following terms:
Yes
(Holland, Lord
Blackburn)
No, a title is merely
an element of a right
(Salmond, Austin)

2. Title Right
An investitive fact Power, faculty or capacity, conferred upon
a person, founded on the title
Holland: Holland does not accept title as an element of a legal right. Holland does not
approve of the use of the term ‘title’ for although it connotes the facts giving rise to a
right, it does not indicate the facts which transfer or extinguish rights.
Justice Holmes: Every right is a consequence attached by the law to one or more facts
which the law defines and wherever the law gives anyone special right, not shared by
the body of the people, it does so on the ground that certain special facts, not true of the
rest of the world, are true to him. It is these special facts which constitute the title.
Bentham: He criticizes the word ‘title’ because, while it denotes the facts which give rise
to the creation of right, it does not denote those which destroy a right. He suggests the
term ‘dispositive fact’ instead of ‘title’ for every fact by which a right or duty is created
or destroyed.