A arranges music for daughter's marriage for 3 nights, 7 pm to 6 am. B, neighbor, cannot sleep first day and wants to restrain A from playing on subsequent days. Decide.

The Essential Legal Question

B's grievance is not abstract. On the first night, the loud music from 7 pm to 6 am prevented sleep and caused actual, tangible suffering. The question is whether a court ought to restrain A from continuing this practice on the remaining two nights of the marriage celebration. The answer requires us to weigh, with legal precision, the right of A to celebrate a family occasion against the right of B to peaceful enjoyment of his property — a tension that the law of private nuisance and the law of injunctions must resolve together.

Is the Noise a Nuisance?

Before B can obtain any injunction, he must establish that the noise amounts to a legal nuisance. The test is well settled: the discomfort must be of a substantial character, one that materially interferes with the ordinary physical comfort of human existence according to plain and simple notions — not merely the standards of a person of dainty or elegant habits. As the courts have repeatedly affirmed, the law does not regard trifling or occasional inconveniences; it protects only against sensible, substantial interference with the reasonable enjoyment of one's property.

Playing loud music continuously from 7 pm to 6 am — eleven hours on a stretch through the night — and preventing a neighbour from sleeping, is not a trifling discomfort. Sleep deprivation is a serious physical inconvenience, going to the very core of bodily wellbeing. Courts have held that noise, if sufficient to cause nuisance, is a proper ground for injunction. In Gotham Construction Co. v. Amulya Krishna Ghose (AIR 1968 Cal 91), the court unequivocally stated that money cannot be adequate relief where inconvenience is caused by noise. A teacher of music who gave lessons extending over seventeen hours a week was held to be restrained, even though it did not technically constitute legal nuisance in the strictest sense. The law is sensitive to noise that breaks what Lord Bramwell famously called "the rule of give and take — live and let live."

So, on facts, B has a viable cause — the noise is loud, prolonged throughout the night hours, and has already caused actual suffering. It is not apprehended; it has been experienced. The threat of repetition on the second and third nights is not speculative — it is certain, as A has already arranged and committed to music on all three nights.

The Nature of Relief Sought: A Temporary Injunction

Since B approaches the court during the subsistence of A's celebration — mid-event, so to speak — the relief sought is necessarily a temporary injunction under section 37(1) of the Specific Relief Act read with Order XXXIX, CPC. B cannot wait for a full trial. The mischief is immediate and recurring.

For a temporary injunction, B must satisfy the three-fold test: a prima facie case, balance of convenience in his favour, and the likelihood of irreparable harm if the injunction is refused. Let us test each limb honestly.

Prima facie case: B has experienced one night of sleeplessness. The noise was real, prolonged, and extended through the entire night. There is no dispute that A arranged the music; there is no question of ownership or title to be established. B's right to peaceful enjoyment of his property is being materially interfered with. A prima facie case is clearly made out.

Irreparable injury: This is where B's case becomes particularly strong. The courts have been clear: noise-caused inconvenience cannot be compensated adequately in money. One cannot put a figure on lost sleep, on the accumulated exhaustion, on the physical discomfort of lying awake while loud music blares through the night. The injury, as observed in Gotham Construction, is of a kind that defies monetary quantification.

Balance of convenience: This is the most delicate limb, and it is here that the argument becomes nuanced. On B's side — he has already suffered one night and faces two more. On A's side — a daughter's marriage is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, and restraining the music entirely may cause disproportionate hardship to A and irreparably damage a memorable family event.

The Most Reasonable Judicial Resolution

A court of equity never acts with a heavy and blunt hand. The principle is always to grant the least invasive relief that adequately protects the plaintiff's right. A court would almost certainly not grant a total prohibition on music — that would be excessive given the brief, socially significant, and non-commercial nature of A's occasion. As the courts have observed, if the plaintiff succeeds in a case of nuisance by a factory working at night, the court should direct the defendant to refrain from working in a manner that causes nuisance — an absolute prohibition against working during specified hours is unwarranted.

By analogy, the court would most likely craft a modified temporary injunction — restraining A from playing music between, say, 10 pm or 11 pm and 6 am, rather than prohibiting all music. This protects B's right to sleep during the night hours while permitting A the reasonable enjoyment of a celebratory occasion during the evening.

The Specific Relief Act Dimension: Section 41(f)

There is one further consideration. Section 41(f) of the Specific Relief Act provides that an injunction shall be refused to prevent, on the ground of nuisance, an act of which it is not reasonably clear that it will be a nuisance. Here, however, there is no uncertainty — the act has already been a nuisance. B is not seeking to restrain a feared future nuisance; he is seeking to prevent the repetition of a nuisance that has actually occurred on night one. The facts therefore take the case squarely outside the reach of section 41(f).

Conclusion on the Decision

B would succeed in obtaining a limited temporary injunction. The court would in all likelihood restrain A from playing music during the late-night and early-morning hours — broadly the hours between 10 pm and 6 am — on the remaining two nights, while permitting music during the evening hours of the celebration. A complete prohibition would be disproportionate; a partial restriction is the course that best reconciles the competing rights of the two neighbours. The judge would be guided by the principle that the occasion is temporary, socially legitimate, and not a commercial enterprise — but that B's right to sleep in his own home is a legal right, not a mere sentiment, and its repeated violation over three nights constitutes a continuing nuisance that equity will not allow to go unaddressed.