Private Law Theory

Introduction:
Section 4 of the Indian Contract Act 1872, provides that an offer is complete when it comes to the knowledge of the offeree and that an acceptance is complete as against the offeror when it is put in the course of transmission by the acceptor so as to be out of his power and as against the acceptor when it comes to the knowledge of the offeror. Section 5 provides that the offer can be revoked at any time before the acceptance is dispatched and that an acceptance can be revoked at any time before it comes to the knowledge of the offeror. Section 5 ostensibly departed from the English law as it allowed for the acceptance to be revoked by a more expeditious means than the one used to communicate it.

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Shivprasad Swaminathan, The Will Theorist’s Mailbox: Misunderstanding the Moment of Contract Formation in the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Statute Law Review (2016) doi: 10.1093/slr/hmw029.

First posted 2016-06-22 05:51:40