Question 2 (c)
Supervening impossibility and the cases it does not cover
9 marks
- Time to write
- About 18 minutes
- Notes
- Crux notes
Question
Question 2 (c) · 9 marksUnder the Indian Contract Act, 1872, what is supervening impossibility? Discuss which cases are not covered under supervening impossibility.
Reworded from the university paper; the task is the same. The original paper belongs to the University of Delhi. See DU's question bank.
Before you write
Read off the question and its marks
Read from the question
- What…?Discuss…2 asks, each with its own marks below. Answer both.
Write it in this order
- Read; underline the asks; jot your points 1 min
- 1 Supervening impossibility under section 56, with effect and example 4 marks 7 min
- 2 Cases not covered 5 marks 9 min
- Check: every ask answered, key terms underlined 1 min
Short on time? Trim steps 1 and 2 evenly rather than skip one: each is capped at its own marks.
Try it first. About 18 minutes for 9 marks. Write it out, then open the solution.
Solution
Hover or tap a marked figure, like 72,000, to see how it is made and where else it appears.
Supervening impossibility. Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 provides that “a contract to do an act which, after the contract is made, becomes impossible, or, by reason of some event which the promisor could not prevent, unlawful, becomes void when the act becomes impossible or unlawful”. This is subsequent or post-contractual impossibility: the contract was possible to perform when made, but an unexpected event or a change of circumstances beyond the parties' contemplation, such as a change in law, later prevents performance. Its effect is that the contract becomes void and the parties are discharged from further performance. Examples: A and B contract to marry, and before the date A goes mad (illustration (b) to s. 56).
1Meera and Arjun book Sharma ji's hall for their wedding—the agreement is signed.
Possible to performThe contract was possible to perform when made.
2Days before the function, a fire guts the hall. Nobody is at fault.
Unexpected eventAn unexpected event or a change of circumstances beyond the parties' contemplation later makes performance impossible or unlawful.
3They tear up the agreement together: neither side owes the other anything now.
Section 56The contract becomes void, and the parties are discharged from further performance.
Cases not covered by supervening impossibility. Section 56 discharges a contract only where performance becomes impossible or unlawful. The following therefore do not discharge the contract:
- Difficulty of performance: performance becoming more onerous or expensive.
- Commercial impossibility: a rise in prices or a fall in profitability.
- Strikes, lockouts and civil disturbances, which delay or hinder performance but do not make it impossible.
- Impossibility caused by the default of a third person on whom the promisor relied.
- Failure of one of several objects: where a contract has more than one object and only one fails, the contract is not discharged.
- Self-induced impossibility: a party cannot rely on an impossibility that he himself brought about.
In these cases the contract subsists, and the party who does not perform is liable for breach. Where a promisor knew, or with reasonable diligence might have known, that the act was impossible and the promisee did not, he must compensate the promisee for loss caused by non-performance (s. 56, third paragraph).
Where the 9 marks sit
| # | Component | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Supervening impossibility under section 56, with effect and example | 4 |
| 2 | Cases not covered | 5 |
| Total | 9 |
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