All contracts are agreement but all agreement are not contracts
Answer; A contract is a legally binding agreement or relationship that exists between two or more parties to do or abstain from performing certain acts. A contract can also be defined as a legally binding exchange of promises between two or more parties that the law will enforce. For a contract to be formed an offer made must backed acceptance of which there must be consideration. Both parties involved must intend to create legal relation on a lawful matter which must be entered into freely and should be possible to perform. An agreement is a form of cross reference between different parties, which may be written, oral and lies upon the honor of t he parties for its fulfillment rather than being in any way enforceable. All contracts are agreement because there must be mutual understanding between two parties for a contract to be formed. All parties should agree and adhere to the terms and conditions of an offer. The following cases illustrate ways in which all contracts are agreements; agreements; In the case of invitation to treat, where an invitation to treat is merely an i nvitation to make an offer. When a firm's offer is accepted it results into a contract provided other elements of contracts are accepted. Considering person A buying a radio on hire purchase from person B who deals with electronics and its appliances. Both parties must come to an agreement on payment of monthly installment within specified period of time. Such an agreement result to specialty contract which a contract under seal. All contracts are agreement until avoided for example, avoidable contract where one of the parties can withdraw from it if s/he wishes. This occurs due to minor agreement and misrepresentation or undue influence. Considering a case where person A make contract with person B but during the contract period B realizes that he was engaged to perform an agreement under undue influence. Definition of contract According to section 2(h) of the Indian Contract Act: " An agreement enforceable by law is a contract." A contract therefore, is an agreement the object of which is to create a legal obligation i.e., a duty enforceable by law. From the above definition, we find that a contract essentially consists of two elements: (1) An agreement and (2) Legal obligation i.e., a duty enforceable by law. We shall now examine these elements detail. 1. Agreement. As per section 2 (e): " Every promise and every set of promises, forming the consideration for each other, is an agreement." Thus it is clear from this definition that a 'promise' is an agreement. What is a 'promise'? the answer to this question is contained in section 2 (b) which defines the term." When the person to whom the proposal is made signifies his assent thereto the proposal is said to be accepted. A proposal, when accepted, becomes a promise." An agreement, therefore, comes into existence only when one party makes a proposal or offer to the other party and that other party signifies his assent (i.e., gives hi s acceptance) thereto. In short, an agreement is the sum total of 'offer' and 'acceptance'. On analyzing the above definition the foll owing characteristics characteristics of an agreement become evident:
(a) At least two persons. There must be two or more persons to make an agreement because one person cannot inter into an agreement with himself. (b) Consensus-ad-idem. Both the parties to an agreement must agree about the subject matter of the agreement in the same sense and at the same time.
2. Legal obligation. As stated above, an agreement to become a contract must give rise to a legal obligation i.e., a duty enforceable by law. If an agreement is incapable of creating a duty enforceable by law. It is not a contract. Thus an agreement is a wider term than a contract. “All contracts are agreements but all agreements are not contracts," Agreements of moral, religious or social nature e.g., a promise to l unch together at a friend's house or to take a walk together are not contracts because they are not likely to create a duty enforceable by law for the simple reason that the parties never intended that they should be attended by legal consequences
Essential Elements of a Valid Contract A contract has been defined in section 2(h) as "an agreement enforceable by law." To be enforceable by law, an agreement must possess the essential elements of a valid contract as contained in sections 10, 29 and 56. According to section 10, all agreements are contracts if they are made by the free consent of t he parties, competent to contract, for a lawful consideration, with a lawful object, are not expressly declared by the Act to be void, and where necessary, satisfy the requirements of any law as to writing or attention or registration. As the details of these essentials form the subject matter of our subsequent chapters, we propose to discuss them in brief here. The essential elements of a valid contract are as follows. 1. Offer and acceptance. There must a 'lawful offer' and a 'lawful acceptance' of the offer, thus resulting in an agreement. The adjective 'lawful' implies that the offer and acceptance must satisfy the requirements of the contract act in relation thereto. 2. Intention to create legal relations. There must be an intention among the parties that the agreement should be attached by legal consequences and create legal obligations. Agreements of a social or domestic nature do not contemplate legal relations, and as such they do not give rise to a contract. An agreement to dine at a friend's house in not an agreement intended to create legal relations and therefore is not a contract. Agreements between husband and wife also lack the intention to create legal relationship and thus do not result in contracts. Try to work out the solution in the following cases and then go to the answer. 3. Lawful consideration. The third essential element of a valid contract is the presence of 'consideration'. Consideration has been defined as the price paid by one party for the promise of the other. An agreement is l egally enforceable only when each of the parties to it gives something and gets something. The something given or obtained i s the price for the promise and is called 'consideration' subject to certain exceptions; gratuitous promises are not enforceable at law. The 'consideration' may be an act (doing something) or forbearance (not doing something) or a promise to do or not to do something. It may be past, present or future. But only those considerations are valid which are 'lawful'. The consideration is 'lawful'. unless it is forbidden by law; or is of such a nature that, if permitted it would defeat The provisions of any law; or is fraudulent; or involves or implies injury to th e person or property of another; or is immoral; or is opposed to public policy (sec.23).
4. Capacity of parties. The parties to an agreement must be competent to contract. But the question that arises now is that what parties are competent and what are not. The contracting parties must be of the age of majority and of sound mind and must not be disqualified by any law to which they are subject (sec.11). If any of the parties to the agreement suffers from minority, lunacy, i diocy, drunkenness etc. The agreement is not enforceable at law, except in some special cases e.g., in the case of necessaries supplied to
a minor or lunatic, the supplier of g oods is entitled to be reimbursed from their estate (sec 68). 5. Free consent. Free consent of all the parties to an agreement is another essential element. This concept has two aspects.(1) consent should be made and (2) i t should be free of any pressure or misunderstanding. 'Consent' means that the parties must have agreed upon the same thing in the same sense (sec. 13). There is absence of 'free consent,' if the agreement is induced by (i)coercion, (ii) undue influence, (iii) fraud, (iv) misrepresentation, or (v) mistake (sec. 14). If the agreement is vitiated by any of the first four factors, the contract would be voidable and cannot be enforced by the party guil ty of coercion, undue influence etc. The other party (i.e., the aggrieved party) can ei ther reject the contract or accept it, subject to the rules laid down in the act. If the agreement is induced by mutual mistake which is material to the agreement, it would be void (sec. 20) 6. Lawful object. For the formation of a valid contract it is also necessary that the parties to an agreement must agree for a lawful object. The object for which the agreement has been entered into must not be fraudulent or i llegal or immoral or opposed to public policy or must mot imply injury to the person or the other of the reasons mentioned above the agreement is void. Thus, when a landlord knowingly lets a house to a prostitute to carry on prostitution, he cannot recover the rent through a court of law or a contract for committing a murder is a void contract and unenforceable by law. 7. Writing and registration. According to the Indian contract Act, a contract to be valid, must be in writing and registered. For example, it requires that an agreement to pay a time barred debt must be in writing and an agreement to make a gift for natural love and affection must be in writing and registered to make the agreement enforceable by law which must be observed. 8. Certainty. Section 29 of the contract Act provides that “Agreements, the meaning of which is not certain or capable of being made certain, are void." In order to give rise to a valid contract the terms of the agreement must not be vague or uncertain. It must be possible to ascertain the meaning of the agreement, for otherwise, it cannot be enforced Illustration. A, agrees to sell B " a hundred ton of oil" there is nothing whatever to show what kind of oil was intended. The agreement is void for uncertainly. 9. Possibility of performance. Yet another essential feature of a valid contract i s that it must be capable of performance. Section 56 lays down that "An agreement to do an act impossible in itself is void". If the act is impossible in itself, physically or l egally, the agreement cannot be enforced at law. Illustration. A agrees with B, to discover treasure by magic. The agreement is not enforceable. 10. Not expressly declared void. The agreement must not have been expressly declared to be void under the Act. Sections 24-30 specify certain types of agreements that have been expressly declared to be void. For example, an agreement in restraint of marriage, an agreement in restraint of trade, and an agreement by way of wager have been expressly declared void under sections 26, 27 and 30 respectively.
It is a valid and true statement. Before we can critically examine the statement, it is necessary to understand the meaning of agreement and contract. Ac cording to section 2(a) "every promise on every set of promises forming the consideration for each other an agreement. It is fact an agreement is a proposal and its acceptance, by which two or more person or parties promises to do abstain from doing an act. But a contract according to section 2(h) of the Indian Contract Act, "An agreement enforceable by law is a contract. It is clear these definitions that the there elements of a contract ore (a) Agreement Contractual Obligation (b) Enforceability by Law. For Example: X invites his friend to tea and the latter accepts the invitation. This is a social agreement not a contract because it does not imply any legal obligation. We can say that (a) All contracts are agreements, (b) But all agreements are not contracts. (A) All Contracts are Agreements For a Contract to be there an agreement is essential; without an agreement, there can be no contract. As the saying goes, "where there is smoke, there is fire; for without fire, there can be no smoke". It could will be said, "where there is contract, there is agreement without an agreement there can be no contract". Just as a fire gives birth to smoke, in the same way, an agreement gives birth to a contract. Another essential element of a contract is the legal obligation for the parties to the contract, there are many agreements that do not entail any legal obligations. As such, these agreements cannot be called contracts. For Example: A gives his car to B for repair and B asks for Rs. 200 for the repair works. A agrees to pay the price and B agrees to repair the car. The agreement imposes an obligation on both. The third element of a contract is that the agreement must be enforceable by Law. If one party fails to keep his promise, the other has the right to go the court and force the defaulter to keep his promises. There are other elements are: 1. Offer and acceptance,
2. Legal obligation, 3. Lawful consideration, 4. Valid object,
5. Agreement not being declared void by Law, 6. Free consent, 7. Agreement being written and registered, 8. Capacity to contract, 9. Possibility of performance from what has been discussed. It is clear that all contracts are agreements.
All Agreements are not Contracts: An agreement is termed a contract only when it is enforceable by law. All agreements are not necessarily legally enforceable. It can rightly be said that an agreement has a much wider scope than a contract. For example that agreements are not legally binding are an invitation to dinner or to go for a walk and its acceptance. These are agreements not contracts. An agreement does not necessarily imply a legal obligation on the parties to the agreement. It is import here to clarify what exactly is an obligation. Obligation is a legal tie which imposes upon a person or persons the necessity of doing or abstaining from doing definite act or acts. An agreement need not necessarily be within the framework of law and be legally enforceable. If it is, then it is a contract. A promises B to do physical harm to C whom, the latter does not like and B promises to pay A Rs. 1000 to do that, it cannot be termed as a contract because such an act would be against the law. Any agreement of which the object or consideration is unlawful is void and cannot be called a contract. It would be clear from what has been said so far that an agreement has a much wider scope than a contract. An Agreement implies fulfilling some agreed condition. It does not necessarily imply that the stipulated conditions conform to the law and are enforceable by it. It may be said that an agreement is the genus of which contract is the species. It also makes it clear that all agreements are not contracts but all contracts are agreements.
