Law applies only to persons. Thus, persons are the subjects of law. A person is an entity which is clothed with rights and duties. There are two kinds of persons. A person may be a natural or an artificial person. All the human beings are natural persons. They are tangible and visible.
On the other hand, and artificial person is a metaphysical body, intangible and invisible. An artificial person is brought into existence by following a procedure given in some law.
For example, a public company is an artificial person and is brought into existence by following the procedure given in the Companies Act, 1956. Thus there must be at least seven persons for bringing a public company into existence.
In this way, an artificial person comes into existence when law confers such a status upon a group of persons or any object or institution. An artificial person is also known as a legal entity when it comes into existence. It has one ‘corpus’ or ‘body’ in law distinct from the members who constitute it.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In addition to Companies Act, 1956, there are some other laws under which artificial persons can be brought into existence. Some such laws are: Societies Registration Act, 1860; Co-operative Societies Act, 1912.