UNIVERSITY OF ALLAHABAD

Department of Law
Stream: BA LLB (Hons.)
Semester: 3rd
Subject: Law of Contract I
Topic: An Agreement Enforceable by Law is a Contract
Roll No: 145
Section: B

Submitted by: Submitted to:

Vipul Prajapati Mr. Rajeev Sharma,
Asst. Professor,
(Law of Contract)
Department of Law.
 Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher
Mr. Rajeev Sharma, who gave me the opportunity to do this wonderful
project of Law of Contract I on the topic “An Agreement Enforceable by
Law is a Contract”, who also helped me in completing my project. I came
to know about so many new things I am really thankful to her. Secondly I
would also like to thank Internet who helped me a lot in finalizing this
project within the limited time frame.

Vipul Prajapati,
BALLB, Sem 3,
University of Allahabad.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: ............................................................................................................................... 3
AGREEMENT: ..................................................................................................................................... 3
PROMISE:............................................................................................................................................. 3
ENFORCEABILITY OF THE AGREEMENT: ................................................................................ 4
LAWFUL CONSIDERATION AND VALID OBJECT (SECTION 23):........................................ 5
THE AGREEMENT MUST BE FOR SOME CONSIDERATION (SECTION 25): ..................... 5
CONCLUSION: .................................................................................................................................... 6
BIBLIOGRAPHY:................................................................................................................................ 6
INTRODUCTION:
"All contracts are agreements, but not all agreements are contracts"
The first thing that we need to know about is what a contract is. The definition of contract is
given in section 2(h) of the Indian Contract Act 1872 as follows:
"An agreement enforced by law is a contract."

Similarly Sir Frederick Pollock has defined contract:

“Every agreement and promise that is enforceable by law is a contract.”

Anson has also given the meaning of contract as follows:

“A contract is made up of a promise or promise of action. In every promise there are two
people, one who makes the promise and the other to whom the promise is made. The
promise made between those two people can be done with the same intention in mind.
And all the work that is done is done keeping that promise in mind.”

According to Salmand, “it happens by agreement and deed between two people.”
Like Geeta promises to sell the phone to Sita for ₹6,000 and Sita promises to buy the phone
from Geeta for the same price. ,

From the meaning of the above contract, we can infer that there are two essential elements of
the contract.

• An agreement
• Enforceability of the same agreement

AGREEMENT:
As per section 2(e) of the Indian Contract Act 1872 “Every promise or every set of promises,
which are the basis of consideration for each other, is an agreement. After looking at the
definition of agreement, it is clear that a promise is a commitment."

PROMISE:
Section 2(b) of the Indian Contract Act 1872 indicates the definition of the word
promise. By its calculation, when a person to whom an offer is made indicates his assent, the
offer is accepted. When an offer is accepted, it becomes a promise.
Thus, an 'agreement' is a bilateral transaction between two or more persons involving an offer
or offer and the acceptance of such an offer by each other. In other words, it requires
'multiplicity of persons' because one person cannot compromise with himself.
As stated above, a contract must give rise to a legal obligation in order to become a contract.
If one is not enforceable by law. This is not a contract.

ENFORCEABILITY OF THE AGREEMENT:

Section 10 of the Act deals with the conditions of enforceability of an agreement. It
provides: “All agreements are contracts if they are made with the free consent of the parties
competent to contract for a lawful consideration and for any lawful object and are not hereby
expressly declared to be void.”
In the second article of section 10 it is said that “Nothing contained herein shall be in force in
India and hereby expressly repealed by any law by which a contract is required to be made in
writing or in the presence of witnesses, or on any law which may be enforced by the registration
of documents. Be concerned, will not affect."

From the definition written above, we can say that according to section 10, it is necessary
to fulfil the following conditions:

• Competent Parties: As per section 11 and 12 of the Act the following person is not
competent to contract:
• Minors: (in Mohri Bibi vs Dharmadas Ghosh it was stated that an agreement with a
minor is initially void ab initio)
• Unsound Mind: A person disqualified from being subject to any law.
• Free Consent: Whatever has been agreed in the same sense and has not received the
consent of the party.
• Coercion: Section (15) - An act prohibited by the Indian Penal Code. (It was held in
Chikam Amiraju v. Chikam Sheshamma that the threat of suicide amounted to
"coercion" under section 15 of the Indian Contract Act.)
• Unwanted effect: Section 16 - Effect by which any person is induced to act otherwise
of his own free will or without due consideration of the consequences.
• Fraud: Section 17 - Cheating is defined under Section 17 of the Indian Contract Act
1872.
• Misrepresentation: Section 18 -Misrepresentation is a misleading, negligent, or
innocent false statement or incomplete statement of material fact.
• Mistake: Where both the parties to an agreement are at fault in the matter of essential
element or have agreed in different contexts, such agreement is considered invalid.
LAWFUL CONSIDERATION AND VALID OBJECT (SECTION 23):
For the formation of a contract it is very important that the consideration and purpose
of the contract should be valid. A consideration or thing is said to be illegal if,
• It is prohibited by law
• It would defeat the provision of any law
• It is full of fraud
• It involves hurting or involving the property of any person or other
Or
• Unethical from the court here considers against public policy.

THE AGREEMENT MUST BE FOR SOME CONSIDERATION (SECTION

25):
Section 25 of the Act declares that an agreement without consideration is void. However, there
are certain conditions under section 25 under which a contract is deemed to be valid without
any consideration.
The agreement must not be explicitly declared invalid by any law.

The following agreements are declared void or invalid under the Indian Contract Act:
• Where both parties are under a mistake of fact essential to the agreement. (Section 20)
or
• Compromise without consideration (Section 25)
• Agreement in the moderation of marriage of any person other than a minor (Section 26)
• Agreement in restraint of trade (Section 27)
• A settlement is an absolute deterrent to judicial action (Section 28)
• An agreement whose meaning is uncertain and incapable of being certain (section 29)
• Agreement in the form of a wager (Section 30)
• Agreement on Impossible Events (Section 36)
• Agreement to do an act which in itself is impossible or which subsequently becomes
impossible without the fault of any party (section 56)
Other legal requirement
An agreement must fulfil the formalities required or required by a particular law. If
required by any law in India, it must be in writing, attested and attested. Some agreements like:
• One time agreement to pay the barred loan.
or
• Agreement for transfer of immovable property.
or
• Agreement to refer the matter for arbitration in case of dispute.
It is these agreements that must be written and registered.
CONCLUSION:
A contract is a legally binding agreement that exists between two or more parties. An
agreement begins with an offer and ends on consideration but a contract has to achieve another
goal i.e. enforceability. To provide for a legal remedy to the aggrieved party against the guilty
party by reason of breach of contract. So we can say that all contract is an agreement but not
all agreement is a contract.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Department, Indian Government Legislative. A1872-09.pdf. Legislative Department. [Online]

https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A1872-09.pdf.

2. Bangia, Dr. RK. Contract - I. s.l. : Allahabad Law Agency.