Importance Of Legal Personality

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A person can be described as anything which has a legal right or legal duties.The word person is derived from latin words per, ie, through and sonare, ie, to sound. in ancient times, persona signified an actor's mask through which his voice reached audience. hence is not necessary that only human beings can be persons. Salmond has described a person as "a person is any being to whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties. Any being that is so capable is a person, whethera human being or not, and no being that is so capable is a person even though he be a man" so what basically has salmond says is that a person is nayone who has legal right or who can be legally represented and also says things which are not humanbeings can also be …show more content…

Various philosophers like savigny have also expressly opined that the companies are only fictitious legal person and the reason they have rights and duties is because law has given them such rights and duties and there whole status as legal person is a result of fiction, thi theory is often referred to as fiction theory and it was propounded by Savigny. Another prominent theory is the realist theory which says that legal personality is a reality and not a fiction, it was given by German philosopher Gieke, according to this theory anything which has its own free will is a legal person and since corporations too have the same characteristic they too are legal persons and there legal identity is a reality. This legal theory attained popularity in England because of the support rendered by influential jurists like Maitland and Pollock. in this paper I would like to draw a line of difference between fiction theory and realist theory In real world we have to face situations where …show more content…

Som Nath Dass and others , The Supeme court led to an outcry among people when in a suit it had considered The Guru Granth Sahib as legal person in its judgement and many took the judgement other way. In another judgement the court had accepted the legal position of the Hindu idol where the matter had been brought before court for the recovery of the property of idol which was in illegal possession of someone else. It had also been held by Calcutta High Court that a Hindu deity is capable of holding property as well as being taxed and for the taxing purposes the legal personalities like Hindu gods will also be considered as "individual" and thus they can also be taxed . In most of the cases where an Hindu idol is considered as legal person the matters are pertaing to either taxation or they are related with property disputes

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