Central Bank of India v Ram Narain (Supreme Court, 1954) — what domicile means: factum and animus

Sections 5 to 19 of the Indian Succession Act turn on domicile, but the Act nowhere defines it. This case supplies the definition and the two constituent elements, and it is the standard citation in an answer on kinds of domicile.

Ram Narain was accused of offences committed in November 1947 in the Multan district, which on partition became part of Pakistan. He afterwards migrated to India. The question was whether the criminal courts in India had jurisdiction to try him, which depended on whether he was domiciled in India at the time the offences were committed. The Punjab High Court's order came to the Supreme Court on appeal, and was decided on 12 October 1954 by a Bench headed by Mahajan C.J.

Whether a person who commits an offence abroad and afterwards acquires an Indian domicile and citizenship may be tried in India; and, for that purpose, what "domicile" means and when it is acquired.

On jurisdiction the Court held that a person accused of an offence committed in a district that became part of Pakistan cannot be tried by a criminal court in India after migrating and acquiring the status of a citizen of India: acquiring domicile or citizenship afterwards "does not confer jurisdiction on the Court of that country retrospectively" for offences committed and completed when the person was neither.

On domicile the Court accepted that "the term 'domicil' does not admit of an absolute definition", and adopted the formulation of Chitty J. in Craignish v Craignish: "That place is properly the domicil of a person in which his habitation is fixed without any present intention of removing therefrom." It added that "the term domicil can be illustrated but cannot be defined."

The working test is the two elements: "There must be the factum and there must be the animus." As to the factum, "the residence need not be continuous but it must be indefinite, not purely fleeting." As to the animus, "the intention must be a present intention to reside for ever in the country where the residence has been taken up."

1. Domicile is the place where a person's habitation is fixed with no present intention of removing from it.
2. Two elements are required: residence of a particular kind (the factum), which must be indefinite rather than fleeting, and intention of a particular kind (the animus), which must be a present intention to reside there permanently.
3. Domicile or citizenship acquired after an offence does not retrospectively confer jurisdiction.

This is a criminal jurisdiction case. Cite it for the meaning of domicile, which is how the succession textbooks use it, and not for any proposition about succession itself.