Injunction - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition injunction

Definition :

Injunction, Expression 'injunction' in s. 41(b) is not qualified by an adjective and, therefore, it would, comprehend both interim and perpetual injunc-tion, Cotton Corporation of India v. United Industries Ltd., AIR 1983 SC 1272 (1277): (1983) 4 SCC 625. [Specific Relief Act, 1963, s. 41(b)]

This is the discretionary process of preventive and remedial justice, whereby a person is required to refrain from doing a specified meditated wrong, not amounting to a crime. It is either (1) inter-locutory, i.e., provisional or temporary, until the coming in of the defendant's answer, or until the hearing of the cause; or (2) perpetual, i.e., forming part of a decree made at a hearing upon the merits, whereby the defendant is perpetually inhibited from the assertion of a right, or perpetually res-trained from the commission of an act contrary to equity and good conscience. As to mandatory injunctions, see post.

See Specific Relief Act, 1963 (47 of 1963), s. 37.

Prior to the Judicature Act injunctions were grantable by the Court of Chancery only (except to prevent the repetition of a breach of contract or injury under s. 79of the (English) C.L.P. Act, 1854, or the infringement of a patent, for which purposes a Common Law Court might grant them), and injunctions, called 'common injunction,' were frequently granted by that Court to stay a suitor from proceeding in a Court of Common Law to assert a right which it was contrary to equity that he should assert. Such an injunction might, upon a proper case being presented to the Court, be granted at any stage of the proceedings at law. Thus an injunction would be granted to stay trial; after verdict to stay judgment; or after judgment to stay execution.

By s. 41 of the (English) Judicature Act, 1925, how-ever, it is enacted that no proceeding in the High Court of Justice, or before the Court of Appeal, shall be restrained by injunction; but every matter of equity on which an injunction against the pro-secution of any such cause or proceeding might have been obtained, if the Act had not passed, may be relied on by way of defence thereto, it being provided, however, that the court may direct a 'stay of proceedings.'

Amongst public nuisances, restrainable either upon information or at suit of a private person immediately grieved by them, may be enumerated obstructions to highways and bridges, public rivers and harbours, and everything that renders the enjoyment of life and property hazardous and uncomfortable. In the case of a private nuisance, there must be such an injury as from its nature is not susceptible of being compensated by damages, or as from its continuance or permanent mischief must occasion a constantly recurring grievance which cannot be otherwise adequately prevented than by an injunction; as where the injury is irreparable or where injury to health or trade, destruction of the means of subsistence, or permanent ruin to propertmay ensue'e.g., from the obstruction of ancient lights of a dwelling house, blocking up of water-courses, diversion of streams from mills, the back flowage on mills, pulling down of the banks of rivers and exposing adjacent lands to inundation, or neighbouring mills to destruction, etc.

The piracy of a copyright, or the invasion of a patent, can be restrained, and the court will direct an account of the books printed, and the profits made by the infringer.

A special injunction may be obtained whenever a proper case can be made for it; thus injunctions have been granted to restrain the following acts: the publication of letters, for the writer of a letter has a joint property in it with the person to whom it is addressed, the receiver having only a special property in it; the publication of a libel; the proper use by one man of the trademarks or name of another person; the disclosure of secrets acquired in the course of a confidential employment; the alienation of property; the negotiation of bills of exchange and promissory notes obtained by fraud or collusion; the transfer of stock; the receipt of dividends; the sale of specific chattels; the vex-atious alienation of real property pendente lite; the sale of trust property; the improper presentation to a benefice; the appointing of a minister to a dissenting chapel; the dealing with or the sailing of a ship: the breach of covenants; and see Shelfer v. City of London Electric Lighting Co., (1895) 1 Ch 322 (323).

In a proper case damages may be awarded either in addition to or in substitution for an injunction [see Gilling v. Gray, (1910) 27 TLR 39]. As to the recovery of damages in lieu of an injunction for an injury which is threatened but not yet done, see Leeds Industrial Society v. Slack, (1924) 40 TLR 745. By s. 25, sub-s. 8, an injunction may be granted by an interlocutory order 'in all cases in which it shall appear to the Court to be just or convenient that such order should be made'; and see Ord. L., r. 6.

In addition to the injunctions mentioned above, which have for their object the restraining of the defendant from committing some apprehended wrong, there is a third class called mandatory injunctions, where the court goes further and compels a defendant who has actually completed the wrongful act to undo what he has done and restore matters to their former condition; thus, in a proper case a defendant may be ordered to pull down a building which he has erected in defiance of the plaintiff's right, even though the building has been completed before the writ was issued. As to the principles on which the court proceeds in such cases, see Daniel v. Ferguson, (1891) 2 Ch 27; Van Joel v. Hornsey, (1895) 2 Ch 774; Woodward v. Battersea Corporation, (1911) 104 LT 51; and as to the form of the order, see Jackson v. Normanby Brick Co., (1899) 1 Ch 438. Consult Kerr or Joyce on Injunctions.