There is absence of free consent’ if the agreement is induced by (ii) coercion, (ii) undue influence, (iii) fraud, (iv) misrepresentation, or (v) mistake (Sec. ‘Consent’ means that the parties must have agreed upon the same thing in the same sense (Sec. If any of the parties to the agreement suffers from minority, lunacy, idiocy, drunkenness, etc., the agreement is not enforceable at law.įree consent of all the parties to an agreement is another essential element of a valid contract. In order to be competent to contract the parties must be of the age of majority and of sound mind and must not be disqualified from contracting by any law to which they are subject (Sec.
The parties to an agreement must be competent to contract otherwise it cannot be enforced by a court of law. But only those considerations are valid which are ‘lawful’. The ‘consideration’ may be an act (doing something) or forbearance (not doing something) or a promise to do or not to do something. Subject to certain exceptions, gratuitous promises are not enforceable at law. The something given or obtained is the price for the promise and is called ‘consideration’.
An agreement is legally enforceable only when each of the parties to it gives something and gets something.
Consideration has been defined as the price paid by one party for the promise of the other. The third essential element of a valid contract is the presence of ‘consideration’.