Wrongful Detention And Wrongful Confinement

Wrongful detention and wrongful confinement, the cause of action in wrongful detention is based on a wrongful withholding or to the plaintiff's goods. It depends on the defendant being in possession of the plaintiff's goods. If such a defendant, without any right so to do, withholds the goods from the plaintiff after the plaintiff had demanded their return, he is, for such time as he so withholds them, guilty of wrongful detention. This is the trot of which a bailee or finder is guilty who is in possession of the goods and fails to deliver them a reasonable time after demand, though it may also, in the case of a bailee, be a breach of contract. If the bailee or finder subsequently disposes of the goods, he is guilty of conversion, but the wrongful detention then comes to an end and is swallowed up in the conversion, Dhian Singh Sobha Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1958 SC 274.