Performance of Contract

You book a caterer for your cousin's wedding hall in Vashi, to arrive at 6pm. At 6.05pm a man turns up with the trays, but he is not the caterer you met — he is the caterer's brother-in-law. Another day, you order a sofa set and the shop delivers at 11pm, after closing time, and no one is home. Who has failed to perform, and who is entitled to complain? Performance sounds simple — just do what you promised — but the Indian Contract Act spends thirty-odd sections on who must do it, to whom, when, where and in what order.

In two minutes

Performance means doing what you promised, in the way, at the time and at the place the contract (or failing that, the Act) requires — and a genuine, unconditional offer to perform that the other side refuses counts almost as good as performance itself.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Contract and Specific Relief on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.