Breach of Contract

A photographer you hired for your sister's engagement in Thane sends a message three weeks before the date: “Sorry, I have a bigger booking, I will not come.” Do you have to wait until the day of the engagement to see whether he turns up before you can sue? Or hire someone else at once and claim the difference? Now change the facts: he does turn up, but leaves after one hour of a six-hour booking. Is that the same kind of wrong? Breach of contract is not a single thing. The Indian Contract Act distinguishes refusal, disablement, prevention, partial failure and delay, and each has different consequences for the innocent party.

In two minutes

A breach is a failure, without lawful excuse, to perform a contractual promise; the Act's key section is s.39, which lets the promisee end the contract where the other party refuses or disables himself from performing the promise in its entirety, unless he has acquiesced in continuance.

The rest of this chapter

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