Rules:
A. Whoever intending to take any moveable property out of the possession of any person without that person’s consent, moves that property out of his or her possession, is said to commit theft.
B. A person who, without lawful excuse, damages any property belonging to another intending to damage any such property shall be guilty of causing criminal damage.
C. Damage means any impairment of the value of a property.
Facts:
Veena, an old lady of 78 years, used to live with her granddaughter Indira. Veena was ill and therefore bed-ridden for several months. In those months, she could not tolerate any noise and it ‘became quite difficult to clean her room. After she died, Indira hired a cleaner, Lucky, to clean the room and throw away any rubbish that may be there.
There was a pile of old newspapers which Veena had stacked in a corner of her room.
Lucky asked Indira if he should clear away the pile of old newspapers, to which she said yes. Lucky took the pile to a municipality rubbish dump. While Lucky was sorting and throwing away the newspapers, he was very surprised to find a beautiful painting in between two sheets of paper. He thought that Indira probably wouldn’t want this old painting back, especially because it was I’m in several places and the colour was fading. He took the painting home, mounted it on a wooden frame and hung it on the wall of his bedroom. Unknown to him, the painting was an old, masterpiece, and worth twenty thousand rupees. Before mounting the painting, Lucky pasted it on a plain sheet of paper so that it does not tear any more. By doing so, he made its professional restoration very difficult and thereby reduced its value by half Lucky’s neighbour Kamala discovered that the painting belonged to Indira. With the motive of returning the painting to Indira, Kamala climbed through an open window into Lucky’s room when he was away one afternoon and removed the painting from his house.