In general the term right to lien is the right of an individual to keep goods and securities belonging to another in his possession until certain legal debts owed to the person retaining the goods are satisfied. Right to lien is the right only to keep the property does not support a power of sale.
In contract of bailment if the bailee is not paid the lawful charges than he has right to retain the goods this right to retain is called as right to lien. The Supreme Court in Syndicate Bank v Vijay Kumar, (1992) 2 SCC 330 describe the nature of this by stating the following passage from Halsbury’s Laws of England. “Lien is in its primary sense a right in one man to retain that which is in his possession belonging to another until certain demands of the person in possession are satisfied. In this primary sense it is given by law
and not by contract.” Liens are of two types
particular lien and general lien.
•)Particular lien
Bailee is entitled only to a particular lien, which means that the bailor has the right to retain only that particular property in respect of the charges due to him. This right is provided in section 170 of the the Indian Contract Act 1872 as “where the bailee has, in accordance with the purpose of the bailment, rendered any service involving the exercise of labour or skill in respect of the goods bailed, he has, in the absence of a contract to the contrary, a right to retain such goods until he receives due remuneration for the services he has rendered in respect of them.”
For example X gives cloth to Y, a tailor,to make into a shirt. So Y is entitled to retain the shirt till X pays him for the services he has rendered.
The right to Lien is available to the bailee but he subject to certain conditions that are
•The bailee should have rendered some service involving the exercise of labour or skill in respect of the goods that are bailed.
•the labour or skill that the bailee have exercised must be for the purpose of the bailment and should be in accordance with the terms of the contract.
•The bailee has the right to keep only those goods on which the bailee exercise of labour or skill. He is not entitled to keep any other goods in his custody that belong to the bailor.
•The right of lien of the bailee depends on possession and if the possession of the goods is lost then bailee no longer have that right. In case of Surya Investment Co v State Trading
Corpn ofIndia (P) Ltd, AIR 1987 Cal 46, the bailee lost his lien because the goods in his cold store were claimed by a special officer.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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