Market - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition market

Definition :

Market [anciently written mercat, fr. mercatus, Lat.], a public time and place of buying and selling; also purchase and sale. It differs from the forum, or market of antiquity, which was a public market-place on one side only, the other sides being occupied by temples, theatres, etc.

A market can only be set up by virtue of a royal grant, or by long and immemorial usage, which presupposes a grant.

See FAIRS; and (English) Public Health Act, 1875, s. 167, the Public Health Act, 1908 (8 Edw. 7, c. 6), and the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act, 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. 14); (English) Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, 1886 to 1926.

As to disturbance of market, see Goldsmid v. Great Eastern Railway Co., (1884) 9 App Cas 927; A.G. v. Horner (No. 2), (1913) 2 Ch 140. In City of London Fruit Corporation v. Lyons, Sons & Co. Ltd., 1936 Ch 78, it was held that any member of the public has a right of access to a franchise market on payment of tolls and observance of bye-laws for the purpose of conducting sales, and that a sale by auction in the vicinity was not a disturbance. Pease and Chitty on Markets and Fairs, and see MARKETS AND FAIRS and COPYHOLDS.

Market means and includes any place or places for buying and selling, inter alia, grains where more than four stalls or shops are kept on any plot of land owned by the same owner or owners, or where wholesale transaction by way of auction or sale of more than twenty maunds is carried on, Afzal Ullah v. State of U.P., AIR 1964 SC 264: (1964) 4 SCR 991.

It includes any place where persons assemble for the sale of, or for the purpose of exposing for sale, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, animals intended for human food or any other articles of human food whatsoever, with or without the consent of the owner of such place notwithstanding that there may be no common regulation for the concourse of buyers and sellers and whether or not any control is exercised over the business of, or the persons frequenting, the market by the owner of the place or by any other person, but shall not include a single shop or group of shops not being more than six in number and shops within unit lines. [Cantonments Act, 1924 (2 of 1924), s. 2 (xx)]

In modern parlance the word 'market' has come to mean business as well as the place where business is carried on. Labour Market for example, is not a place where laboureres are recruited but the conditions of the business of labour. The word 'market' being thus capable of signifying both business and the place where the business is carried on, the question in what sense it is used in a particular statute must be decided on a consideration of the context of that statute, Waverly Jute Mills Co. Ltd. v. Rayman & Co., AIR 1963 SC 90 (95): (1963) 3 SCR 209.

Market, includes any place where persons assemble for exposing for sale, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, food, or any other articles for human use or consumption with or without the consent of the owner of such place, notwithstanding that there may be no common regulation for the concourse of the buyers and the sellers and whether or not any control is exercised over the business of, or the persons frequenting the market by the owner of the place or by any other person. [Maharashtra Non-Biodegradable Garbage (Control) Act, 2006, s. 2(f)]