TMI Blog1939 (12) TMI 10X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... electricity for the apparatus and lighting. It is common ground that this engine was installed by making a concrete base fitted with bolts and attaching the engine to the bolts by means of nuts. The lease of defendants 1 and 2 expired in 1930 and there was a suit by defendant 5 for eviction and arrears of rent. Defendant 5 attached before judgment the machinery on the premises. That suit resulted in a compromise decree passed in October 1930 whereunder defendant 5 agreed to give defendants 1 and 2 a further lease for two years, the arrears of rent to be paid in instalments and there was a provision that in the event of default in paying any instalment the lease should cease and defendant 5 should be entitled to evict. The decree also recogn ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r application which presents a difficulty. 'Immovable property' is defined in Section 3, General Clauses Act (10 of 1897) as including land, benefits to arise out of land and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth. Section 3, T.P. Act, excludes from 'immovable property' standing timber, growing crops or grass and defines the term attached to the earth as (a) rooted in the earth, (b) imbedded in the earth or (c) attached to what is so imbedded for the permanent beneficial enjoyment of that to which it is attached. Now I think it is settled that the English law relating to fixtures does not apply in toto to India, Clearly, with reference to the right to fixtures as between land ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... te plat-form, it is necessarily and for all purposes immovable property. As Lord Lindley has observed in the last quoted case, in deciding whether that which has once been a chattel has become annexed to the realty, attention should be paid to the nature of the thing itself, the mode of its attachment and the circumstances in which it came to be attached, the object for which it has been introduced and also the relative positions of the rival claimants. 4. The considerations which should govern the decision of the question whether a thing is or is not a fixture forming part of the freehold have been discussed in two cases where the question was really one at issue between landlord and tenant. In Leigh v. Taylor (1902) A.C. 157 the questi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... earth or attached to what is so imbedded for the permanent beneficial enjoyment of that to which it is attached, then it is part of the immovable property. If the attachment is merely for the beneficial enjoyment of the chattel ifself, then it remains a chattel, even though fixed for the time being so that it may be enjoyed. The question must in each case be decided according to the circumstances. An engine installed in a factory may be immovable property or it may be a chattel. The plaintiff-appellant lays emphasis on the fact that defendant 5's own sale deed recites that this machinery is permanently fixed. Defendant 5 on the other hand emphasizes the fact that the plaintiff's own security bond recites that the machinery is moveab ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to make a permanent improvement to the immovable property. Their object must, from the very circumstances in which the installation was made be deemed to have been to utilize the machinery for their own profit so long as they had the use of the premises and to sell it if and when their lease terminated. It is not therefore a parallel case to the cases in Hobson v. Gorringe (1897) 1 Ch. 182 and Reynolds v. Ashvy (1904) A.C. 466, both cases in which the owner of a building installs machinery therein and may well have been deemed to intend to make a permanent improvement to the premises which he owned in order to facilitate the user of those premises, ft seems to me most unlikely that defendants 1 and 2 when they had this engine bolted on to t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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