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Author – Ankit Kumar

Co-Author – Megha Pandey

Amity Law School Noida

 

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Legal fiction is an assumption that is technically untrue or unknown that is used to guide legal decisions. They derive their legitimacy from tradition and precedent as opposed to the word of the law. Generally speaking, the term is used without negative connotations as legal fiction include rules that greatly simplify legal interpretations. 

Legal fiction is one which is not actual reality and which can be recognized and the courts accept as reality. It is nothing but a presumption of existence of state of affairs which in actuality is non-existent. The effect of such legal fiction is that a position which otherwise we could not obtain is deemed to obtain under the circumstances. For example- Man of ordinary prudence means a hypothetical person used as a legal standard especially to determine whether someone acted with negligence. This hypothetical person exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct that society requires of its members for the protection of their own and of others’ interests.

Such a hypothetical person is creation of legal fiction which is needed in law of tort and criminal law. Apart from law of tort and criminal law it is also used in other laws like law of contract, etc.

Separate Legal Entity is one of the features of the company. Separate legal entity means company will have the distinct entity from its members. A group of shareholders form a company to carry on the business under a new name which is not at all related with any of shareholders. Law would be unable to guide ordinary people, and perhaps unable to perform some number of its other core functions. Legal fictions may be minor curiosities of the law, but the fact that they exist and are understood as fictional suggests that law does not consist entirely of terms of art. Perhaps it does, and thus perhaps it is the talk of legal fictions that is mistaken.

INTRODUCTION

Legal fiction is merely a useful means of fulfilling purpose of a legal system. Fiction is like art, it simulates nature but never blemish it. It assists truth but never ought to demolish it. A legal fiction is a false assumption of fact made by a court, as a basis for resolving a legal issue.

Legal fictions can be traced from Roman Law where the praetor endorse a false procedural statement known as fictio in order to extend a right of action beyond its intended scope. English courts also used legal fictions. Legal fictions are one of the most characteristic features of common law.

In ancient Rome, where every family needed a male heir, the lack of one was overcome through the legal fiction of adoption. In England, when courts handling civil cases were full, the Court of Queen’s (or King’s) Bench, a criminal court, could take some of the load by pretending that the defendant in a simple civil suit had been arrested and was in custody.

Legal fictions make us to understand law and its functions also are indispensable to legal thinking. Legal fiction applies in following cases –

• Where a fact which does not exist is assumed to exist
• Where a fact which does not exist is ignored
• Where an act of one person is taken as act of another; or where an act at one time or place is treated as if it is happened at a different time or place; or where an act in relation to a certain thing is treated as if it is in relation to another thing.

It is said that every fiction must be framed according to the rules of law, and that every legal fiction must have equity for its object. To prevent their evil effects, they are not allowed to be carried further than the reasons which introduced them necessarily require. Fictions abound throughout the law. When successful, these fictions typically serve one of three purposes: to promote fairness, increase efficiency, or provide a standard against which litigants’ behavior may be evaluated.

Legal fictions take the form of statements or suppositions introduced into the legal process, which are nevertheless not allowed to be denied in order that some difficulty or lacuna may be got over with the ultimate purpose of achieving a measure of better justice.

Legal fictions are not used to achieve justice when legal rules are harsh. At times, they have also been used to simplify laws and create bright-line rules to ease their application. For instance, a number of legal fictions have been created to ease application of the Rule against Perpetuities. The Rule against Perpetuities invalidates contingent future interests in wills and estates that are too remote, such as when a testator grants property to a person with conditions that can only be satisfied after the defined perpetuities period. This rule ensures the free alienability of property. It was historically adopted to support the development of a mercantile middle class by ensuring that property entered “the stream of commerce” and did not stay within the landowner’s control.

The use of legal fictions is required when law functions as an expression of thought about the rules that govern social activity.

MEANING
Legal fiction is an assumption that is technically untrue or unknown that is used to guide legal decisions. They derive their legitimacy from tradition and precedent as opposed to the word of the law. Generally speaking, the term is used without negative connotations as legal fiction include rules that greatly simplify legal interpretations. 

Assumption is that something is not false in spite of the fact that it may be not. Legal fiction applied in judicial reasoning to abstain difficulties in the implementation of law, where the circumstance it controls has altered but its diction has remained the same.

DEFINITION

Legal fictions or fictio juris plays important role in defining the law. Legal fiction refers to a fictitious fact that is treated as true under the law for purposes of legal, administrative or other expediency. That is, in certain situations where it is more convenient for the law to consider the facts to be a certain way, a policy may be adopted creating the necessary legal fiction.

Sir Henry Maine explained legal fiction as “any assumption which conceals or tends the fact that the rule of had undergone any alteration, its letter remaining unchanged but its operation being modified.”

Sir Henry Maine pointed out that fiction played a considerable part in defining the law in earlier times but today with the growth of the system of amendments in law, fiction has lost its value. Despite anything to the contrary, Sir Frederick Pollock does not support to this prospective and values that fictions are significant for law even today. The theory of constructive trust and constructive possession are modern illustrations of legal fictions. A legal fiction is thus an supposition opposite to the truth though possible in fact, made for the advancement of justice. The very good example of legal fiction is the famous saying that the judges do not make laws, they merely expound and interpret it.

Ihering classified fictions into 2 classes-

1. Historical fictions are the instruments for summing new law to old without altering the form of old law, such fictions have area of operation mostly in the area of procedure and comprise in making believe that a person or a thing was other than that which he or it was in truth for the determination, thereby law can take a action against a person who are not really in purview of a class to or against which the old action was restricted.

For Example: constructive notice, constructive possession.

2. Dogmatic fictions do not sum up law under the cover of old, as the old historical fictions do. They only provide convenience for recognized and established doctrines.

For Example: Idols and corporations have their personalities due to dogmatic fictions.

The Supreme Court, in State Of Andhra Pradesh v. K.V.L. Narsimha Rao, had the opportunity to explain the meaning of the term ‘legal fiction’ when it was observed:

“Legal fiction is one which is not actual reality and which can be recognized and the courts accept as reality. Therefore, in case of legal fiction the court believes something to exist which in reality does not exist. It is nothing but a presumption of existence of state of affairs which in actuality is non-existent. The effect of such legal fiction is that a position which otherwise we could not obtain is deemed to obtain under the circumstances.”

HOW LEGAL FICTIONS ARE DIFFERENT FROM PRESUMPTIONS?

The term “Legal Fiction” should not be confused with the term “Presumptions”. Legal fictions can be distinguished from presumptions in the following ways –

• In legal fiction the falsehood of the fact assumed is understood and avowed whereas in the presumptions, the inference drawn may or may not be true.
• Legal fiction is accepted as true for legal purposes but it may be true or not true whereas presumptions must be made in the light of certain facts, most presumptions are rebuttable.

For Example: Under Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), a person is not excused for mistake of law through a legal fiction under section 76 whereas a child below the age of 7 years is incapable of committing an offence under section 82 is presumption of law.

Thus, “in what is certainly false we have fiction, in what is not certainly true we have presumption.”

SOME EXAMPLES OF LEGAL FICTION

WAQF

Under Mussalman Waqf  Validating Act, 1913 there are some essential conditions which must be present for a valid waqf. These essentials are –

• There must be a permanent dedication.
• The founder of the waqf must be a competent person.
• The subject matter must be a transferable property.
• The object of the waqf must be religious, pious or charitable under muslim law.
• The formalities required to constitute the waqf must be duly completed.

The very 1^st essential condition is ‘permanent dedication’. Permanent dedication means that there is transfer of ownership of waqf property in the name of God. Of course, this transfer is gratuitous and without consideration. In other words, the transfer is made in such a manner that after constitution of the waqf, the substance or corpus of the property must be detained in order to detain the property, it is dedicated to God.

‘Permanent dedication’ or the concept of vesting the waqf property in the God has the following legal effects –

• Non-transferability – After completion of the waqf, the waqf property becomes non-transferable .i.e., it is tied up forever.
• Irrevocability – When a waqf is constituted in accordance with the legal provisions, the waqif as human being is prohibited by law to revoke it, otherwise it would mean taking back from god what is given to him.

Thus, it is presumed that once a waqf is constituted shall continue to be waqf. Where a settler has a right of revocation vested with him, in that case the waqf is void ab initio.

• Absolute and unconditional – Another important feature of ‘Permanent dedication’ is that the dedication is absolute and unconditional. There cannot be any waqf subject to any condition or contingency.

A conditional or contingent waqf is void. Dedication cannot be permanent of its existence, it depends on some condition.

Objective of legal fiction – To detain the corpus forever and construct usufruct is continuously for its objects. For making the dedication permanent, property is vested in the name of God. According to Muslim law perpetuity is essential condition for every waqf.

MISTAKE OF LAW (OF LAND) IS NO EXCUSE

“Ignorantia juris non excust” means ignorance of law is not excusable. It is a principle which says that a person who is not aware of law may not free from liability for violating that law.

1. MISTAKE OF LAW & MISTAKE OF FACT UNDER INDIAN CONTRACT ACT, 1872

Section 20-22 of ICA, 1872 deals with question of fact and question of law.

Under Indian Contract Act, mistake of law has been categorized into two parts –

• Mistake of foreign law – Mistake of foreign law is excusable .i.e., under contract act mistake of foreign law shall have same effect as mistake of fact.
• Mistake of Indian Law (Law of land) – Mistake of Indian law is no excuse. If there is mistake of Indian law (law of land) then a person is not permitted to avoid the contract.

Under Indian Contract Act, mistake of fact has been categorized into two parts –

• Unilateral mistake – Here contract is neither void nor voidable.
• Bilateral mistake – Here agreement is void.

2. MISTAKE OF LAW & MISTAKE OF FACT UNDER INDIAN PENAL CODE, 1860

Sections 76 & 79 of IPC, 1860 protects a person who is under mistake of fact but not under mistake of law. Section 76 provides protection to a person who is bound by law whereas Section 79 protection to a person who is justified by law and not by reason of mistake of law. Therefore, here in both the cases mistake of law is no excuse.

Thus, through the fiction of law, it has been assumed that every person knows the law of land. Even if a person does not know the law of land he will have to bear consequence of it. It is not possible even for lawyers to remember all provisions of law.

Objective of legal fiction – It is necessary to create such legal fiction because in the absence of such legal fiction it would be very easy for a person to avoid the contract or an accused can easily plead in court that he was not aware of such law and escape liability, in that case it will become very difficult for a court to impose liability.

ADOPTION

According to section 12 of Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956:

“An adopted child shall be deemed to be the child of his or her adoptive father or mother for all purposes with effect from the date of the adoption and from such date all the ties of the child in the family of his or her birth shall be deemed to be severed and replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family.”

It is presumed as if he had been born in the adoptive family. Under the Smriti law the adoption had the following two purposes:—

(a) To perform the funeral, rites of the adoptive parents;

(b) To perpetuate the family lineage of the adoptive father.

Thus primary object of adoption was to extend spiritual benefit and the secondary object was to continue the lineage of the family. Now, under the present Act the object of adoption is irrelevant. The legal effect of adoption cannot be avoided simply on the fact that the adoption was made with intent to deprive the adopted child of the right to inherit property in the family of birth.

Proviso of section 12

 (a) The child cannot marry any person whom he or she could not have married if he or she had continued in the family of his or her birth;

(b) any property which vested in the adopted child before the adoption shall continue to vest in such person subject to the obligations, if any, attaching to the ownership of such property, including the obligation to maintain relatives in the family of his or her birth;

(c) The adopted child shall not divest any person of any estate which vested in him or her before the adoption.

As per proviso (a) to Section 12 of the Act, though adoption has the effect of removing the adopted child from the natural family into the adoptive family, it doesn’t sever the ties of blood in the family of birth in the matter of marriage. Clause (iv) of Section 5 of Hindu Marriage Act lays down that the “parties are not within the degree of prohibited relationship” & clause (vi) of that section lays down as one of the conditions of valid Hindu marriage “that parties are not sapindas of each other”. Both these conditions are equally applicable to an adoptee and the adoptee cannot marry any person whom he or she could not have married on the ground of prohinited relationship or sapinda relationship as if he or she had continued in the family of his or her birth. The explaination to Section 3 of the Hindu marriage Act, 1955, inter alia state that relationship for the purposes of sapinda relationship & prohibited relationship includes relationship by adoption as well as by blood. For that purpose, he would be declared to continue in the natural family.

Under proviso (b) of Section 12 of the Act, the adoptee has his right to any estate vested in time or her prior to the date of adoption. In fact, not only the property belonging to an adopted child in the natural family such as his or her self- acquired property, property inherited by him or her from other persons including his or her father or ancestor or property held as a sole surviving coparcener in a Mitakshara family, but even the interest of a male child in Mitakshara coparcenary would continue to vest in him as if he had separated from the coparcenary.

Proviso (c) to Section 12 of the Act states that the adoption shall be effective for all purposes only from the date of adoption only, and does away with the fiction of relation back under the old Hindu Law. Proviso (c) of Section 12 lays down clearly that the adoption of a son or daughter by a male or female Hindu doesn’t result in the divesting of any estate vested in any person prior to the adoption. The Proviso (c) to Section 12 only bars the adopted child from divesting any person of any estate vested in him prior to the date of adoption but does not either bar the adopted child exercising his coparcenary interests and rights wherever the joint family property continued, or, on the other hand does not allow him to claim any relation back & unjustly divest any estate vested in any person prior to the date of adoption. This was understood to mean that the joint family property in the hands of the surviving brothers of the husband is not divested when the widow of the pre-deceased brother makes an adoption.

The legal fiction has been applied to give effect to the relation of adopted child and adoptive father and mother. By applying legal fiction legislature is assuming that relation of adopted child with adoptive father and mother is in the same manner as if the adoptive child is their real child for all purposes, subject to above exceptions provided in proviso.

The Act does away with the theory of relation back & confers on the child adopted status equivalent to that of a natural born child in the adoptive family only from the date of adoption. From the date of adoption “all the ties” of the child severed from the old family & are replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family. The word ‘ties’ is very wide & comprehensive & would include all types of bonds, social, religious, cultural or any other  that would bind the adoptee to his natural family.

The fiction of adoption is that the adoption is a civil death in the natural family & new birth in the adopted family. Under the principles of old Hindu Law, an adopted son was considered to have been born in the adopted family on the date of adoption where the adoption has taken place during the adoptive father’s lifetime, & on the date of adoptive father’s death (i.e. date of deceased husband of the adopted widow) where the adoption had been made after his death.

The theory on which the doctrine of relation back based is that there should be no hiatus in the continuity of the line of the adoptive father. Under the Hindu Law adoption was always to the male & therefore this collar was necessary.

Objective of legal fiction – Had the legal fiction not been there for giving effect to adoption, it would have been very difficult to adopt the child for any person or couples. To bind children and parents with legal obligations it is mandatory to create legal fiction, by virtue of which adoptive father or mother and adopted child shall have to follow all legal provisions regarding real mother and father and also real child.

MAN OF ORDINARY PRUDENCE

Man of ordinary prudence means a hypothetical person used as a legal standard especially to determine whether someone acted with negligence. This hypothetical person exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct that society requires of its members for the protection of their own and of others’ interests.

Such a hypothetical person is creation of legal fiction which is needed in law of tort and criminal law. Apart from law of tort and criminal law it is also used in other laws like law of contract, etc.

Such a person is really an ideal. In other words a man of ordinary prudence is a reasonable man who is neither over confident nor coward who can form rational judgement in every situation.

In Glasgow corporation v. Muir, the definition of man of ordinary prudence given by Lord Macmillan is as follows:

The standard of foresight of the reasonable man is, in one sense, an impersonal test. It eliminates the personal equation and is independent of the idiosyncrasies of the particular person whose conduct is in question. Some persons are by nature unduly timorous and imagine every path beset with lions. Others, of more robust temperament, fail to foresee or nonchalantly disregard even the most obvious dangers. The reasonable man is presumed to be free both from over-apprehension and from over-confidence, but there is a sense in which the standard of care of the reasonable man involves in its application a subjective element. It is still left to the judge to decide what, in the circumstances of the particular case, the reasonable man would have had in contemplation, and what, accordingly, the party sought to be made liable ought to have foreseen. Here there is room for diversity of view, as, indeed, is well illustrated in the present case. What to one judge may seem far-fetched may seem to another both natural and probable.

Man of Ordinary Prudence under Indian Evidence Act, 1872

According to Section 3 i.e. Interpretation Clause:

“Proved” – A fact is said to be proved when, after considering the matters before it, the Court either believes it to exist, or considers its existence so probable that a prudent man ought, under the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it exists.

“Disproved”– A fact is said to be disproved when, after considering the matters before it, the Court either believes that it does not exist, or considers its non-existence so probable that a prudent man ought, under the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it does not exist.

The definition of Proved and Disproved provides the method by a which a fact is proved or disproved in the court of law If any fact does not fulfill the conditions given in definition then it shall not be taken as proved (it will be disproved).

The two conditions prescribed in definition are –

• Either court believes it to exist or considers its existence so probable that a prudent man ought, under the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it exists.
• The court considers the high probability of existence of it and in supposition of that it exists, it is assumed that a man of ordinary prudence ought to act upon.

Man of Ordinary Prudence under Indian Contract Act, 1872

Section 151 of Indian Contract Act

Care to be taken by bailee.—In all cases of bailment the bailee is bound to take as much care of the goods bailed to him as a man of ordinary prudence would, under similar circumstances, take of his own goods of the same bulk, quantity and value as the goods bailed.

Under Contract of Bailment there are two parties –

• Bailor – Person who deliver the goods for specific purpose
• Bailee – Person who receives the goods and return the goods after specific purpose

Duties of bailor and bailee are prescribed under the Indian Contract Act. Duties of bailee are given under sections 151, 157, 160, 161 & 163.

Section 151 does not provide any specific guideline regarding the care of the goods received by bailee from bailor, it only provides that he must take care of goods like a reasonable man who would take care of his own goods.

Objective of legal fiction – No person can be really an ideal and reasonable in every circumstance, a person may get carried away or become overwhelmed, but law does not assume this and requires a person to put average skill of mind in each and every situations. The legal fiction is required to because there cannot be exhaustive list of act by a reasonable man in different circumstances.

SEPARATE LEGAL ENTITY

Separate Legal Entity is one of the features of the company. Separate legal entity means company will have the distinct entity from its members. A group of shareholders form a company to carry on the business under a new name which is not at all related with any of shareholders.

Through the legal fiction, separate legal entity in fact creates double fiction. First is the separate identity from its members and the second is that the management is carried by company.

Under Companies Act, 2013, provision of One Person Company (OPC) has been introduced. But Sole Proprietorship is different from OPC. In the case of Sole Proprietorship the identity of owner and enterprises remain same whereas in case of OPC even though there is a single member but the identity of enterprise is different from the members who have incorporated it.

Generally there are two types of person which the law recognizes namely natural and artificial. The former refers to human beings while latter to other human beings which law recognized as having duties and rights. Corporation is one of the most known artificial person.

In the opinion of many writers the word “personality” has been restricted to human beings because of the sole reason that they only are subjected to rights and obligations, but in law the scope of word “personality” is wide enough to cover gods, angels, idols, corporation etc. despite of the fact that they are not human beings.

Salmond defines a person as “any being to whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties. Any being that is so capable is a person whether human being or not and nothing that is not so capable is a person even though he be a man”

A natural person is a living human being. But all human beings need not necessarily be recognised as persons in law. For example slavery, before abolition of slavery the slaves were considered to be devoid of any legal personality for they could not have any rights and duties. Also persons such as children have restricted rights for they do not have right to vote.

Legal persons on the other hand is a person any subject-matter in which the law attributes legal personality. Legal personality being the creation of law can be conferred on entities other than human beings. As Salmond rightly observed that “law in creating legal persons always does so by personifying some real things”. He further pointed out that all though all legal personality involves personification the converse is not always true.

Legal persons are thus artificial beings to which law attributes personality by way of fiction where it does not exist in fact. 

Applying to the company three basic principles or groups of principles. First, the legal capacity of the company is restricted or limited in its extent, both by the objects of the company and, more basically, by the common law, to activities which are both lawful and appropriate to the general scope of its purposes. Secondly, within the scope of its particular objects the company is accorded legal capacity for proprietary, contractual and other purposes which is of exactly the same nature as that possessed by natural persons of full capacity. This capacity is entirely separate from, and not derived from or related in any way to, the individuals who ultimately comprise the company’s membership. Thirdly, the company itself is accorded full and independent procedural capacity both vis-à-vis its members and outsiders. From the combination of these principles flow all the well-known practical aspects of separate legal entity. For example, due to its separate proprietary and other capacity the company may enjoy perpetual existence, its usefulness as an entity for accounting purposes is given a legal foundation, and the possibility is opened that its members may limit their liability.

Objective of legal fiction – The statute has created legal fiction to confer the directors, promoters, etc. with right subject to certain duties and obligations. But law does not provide separate legal entity in absolute sense, it has some exceptions in which law disregard the concept of separate legal entity and pierce the corporate veil in order to find out the real persons behind the legal façade which is commonly known as Lifting or Piercing of Corporate Veil.

DEEMING PROVISIONS

Deemed means to have as an opinion or to judge. It can also mean to regard as, or to consider. To deem is to consider something as having certain characteristics. For example, when an act is deemed a crime by law, then it is held to be a crime. If someone is deemed liable for damages, then he will have to pay them.

Section 2(70) of the Companies Act, 2013 defines a prospectus as “A prospectus means Any documents described or issued as a prospectus and includes any notices, circular, advertisement, or other documents inviting deposit from the public or documents inviting offer from the public for the subscription of shares or debentures in a company.” A prospectus also includes shelf prospectus and red herring prospectus. A prospectus is not merely an advertisement.

Deemed Prospectus: Section 25 of the companies Act, 2013 provides that all documents containing offer of shares or debentures for sale shall be included within the definition of the term prospectus and shall be deemed as prospectus by implication of law.

Unless the contrary is proved an allotment of or an agreement to allot shares or debentures shall be deemed to have been made with a view to the shares or debentures being offered for sale to the public if it is shown

a. That the offer of the shares or debentures of or any of them for sale to the public was made within 6 month after the allotment or agreement to allot; or

b. That at the date when the offer was made the whole consideration to be received by the company in respect of the shares or debentures had not been received by it.

All enactments and rules of law as to the contents of prospectus shall apply to deemed prospectus.

Deemed Income means Income which is actually not earned or received by assessee but Income Tax Act consider such as Income deemed to be received in India.

As per sec 59 of Income Tax Act where assessee had claimed any deduction or allowance in any previous years but in current financial year assessee received any amount of allowance or deduction shall be deemed to be Income of assessee under Head Income from Other Sources in Current Financial Year. Where assessee had incurred any liability in past but get remission of such liability in current Financial Year shall be deemed to be Income of assessee under Head Income from Other Sources in Current Financial Year.

CONCLUSION

The examination of legal fictions, therefore, is not simply an examination of an epiphenomenal and quaint feature of legal reasoning. Rather, it is an entry into the difficult problem of legal truth.  But for there to be legal falsehoods there must be an actual or potential divergence between what the law says and what the law or some legal actor should do. Accordingly, the very idea of a legal fiction presupposes a view of legal truth that makes legal truth not entirely discontinuous with truth simpliciter, and such a view about the relationship between legal truth and truth, in turn, presupposes a view of legal language such that legal language is not, and cannot be, entirely sui generis in all of its words, all of its sentences, and all of its meanings. That legal language cannot be understood as entirely technical is consistent with the view that legal language cannot be understood in such a way that the all-things-considered best outcome can be collapsed into the meaning of legal language. Legal fictions are thus parasitic on a gap between legal language and all-things-considered sound results. Without this gap, we would be unable to understand the idea of a legal rule, and unable to understand the way in which law, however technical it may at times get, must remain tethered to the language in which it is written, and thus tethered to the language of the linguistic community in which the legal system exists. Were it otherwise, law would be unable to guide ordinary people, and perhaps unable to perform some number of its other core functions. Legal fictions may be minor curiosities of the law, but the fact that they exist and are understood as fictional suggests that law does not consist entirely of terms of art. Perhaps it does, and thus perhaps it is the talk of legal fictions that is mistaken. But that we think otherwise, and that we think there are legal fictions, entails that we do not think that all legal terms are terms of art. Some of them, and probably most of them, are the terms of the ordinary language of which the technical language of the law is, to a substantial degree, derivative.

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¹ https://www.britannica.com/topic/legal-fiction

² https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-fiction-of-law

³ http://www.nyujlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ng-Boyte-The-Conceits-of-Our-Legal-Imagination-17nyujlpp707.pdf

⁴ http://dspace.cusat.ac.in/jspui/bitstream/123456789/10896/1/THE%20CONCEPT%20OF%20LEGAL%20FICTIONS.PDF

⁵ The classical articulation of the Rule Against Perpetuities is provided by Professor John Chipman Gray: “No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest.” JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY, RULE AGAINST PERPETUITIES § 201 (ROLAND GRAY ED., 4TH ED. 1942), quoted in THOMAS W. MERRILL & HENRY E. SMITH, PROPERTY: PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES 573 (2nd. ed. 2012)

⁶ Lewis M. Simes, The Policy Against Perpetuities, 103 U. PA. L. REV. 707, 708 (1955).

⁷ https://simplicable.com/new/legal-fiction

⁸ https://onlinelaw.wustl.edu/blog/legal-english-legal-fiction/

⁹ Dr. N. V. Pranjpe: Studies in jurisprudence and legal theory, pg.223, 8^th edition

¹0 (1994) 4 SCC 181

¹1 Hama 1956

¹2 http://www.shareyouressays.com/knowledge/what-are-the-effects-of-adoption-under-present-hindu-law/117796

¹3ibid

¹4 Hama 1956

¹5 Dr. S. R. Myeni, Hindu Law (Family Law- I), Asian Law House publication, pg.369, 1^st edition

¹6 Dr. S. R. Myneni, Hindu Law (Family Law- I), Asian Law House publication, pg.369, 1^st edition

¹7 Dr. S. R. Myneni, Hindu Law (Family Law- I), Asian Law House publication, pg.370, 1^st edition

¹8 Dr. S. R. Myneni, Hindu Law (Family Law- I), Asian Law House publication, pg.368, 1^st edition

¹9 Dr. S. R. Myneni, Hindu Law (Family Law- I), Asian Law House publication, pg.374, 1^st edition

²0 ibid

²1 https://definitions.uslegal.com/r/reasonable-prudent-man/

²2 (1943) A.C. 448, at 457

²3 https://www.coursehero.com/file/p6bddc3/Case-law-Muir-v-Glasgow-Corporation-1943-The-manageress-of-a-tearoom-in-Kings/

²4 Indian Evidence Act, 1872

²5 Indian Evidence Act, 1872

²6 Indian Evidence Act, 1872

²7 Indian Contract Act, 1872

²8 https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/concept-separate-legal-entity-light-corporations/

²9 Fitzerland p.j.”salmond on jurisprudence (12^th edition) p:299

³0 https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/concept-separate-legal-entity-light-corporations/#_edn5

³1 https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/concept-separate-legal-entity-light-corporations/#_edn5

³2 https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/deemed/

³3 Companies Act, 2013

³4 ibid

³5 https://freebcomnotes.blogspot.com/2017/02/prospectus-meaning-contents-types.html

³6 https://www.topcafirms.com/white-paper/deemed-income-under-income-tax-act

³7 Income Tax Act, 1995

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Author – Ankit Kumar

Co-Author – Megha Pandey

Amity Law School Noida

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