The Supreme Court ruled in R.D. Saxena v. Balram Prasad Sharma, (2000) 7 SCC 264, that files containing copies of the records cannot be considered goods. It was noted that an article had to be something that could typically be brought to markets to be bought and sold in order to qualify as “goods.” Since case documents are not considered goods under Section 171 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, it is impossible to construe Section 171 so as to include case papers in order to assert a lien against them in order to recover attorney fees.
The “goods” must be saleable and the person to whom they are bailed must be able to sell them for money in order to be considered “goods” under Section 171 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. To put it another way, the items listed in Section 171 of the Contract Act are things that can be sold. The case files cannot be sold to a third party or converted into money in any way. The court additionally decided that, even under common law, no lien could be asserted in relation to the case file and any other papers required for the filing of the case and subsequent advancement of the litigation.
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