On May 16, 1974, Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman signed the Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh. It was not carried out for decades. In 2011 the two governments added a protocol. In May 2015 Parliament passed the 100th Amendment to the Constitution to put the agreement into effect.
At midnight on July 31, 2015, the two countries exchanged their enclaves. India transferred 111 enclaves to Bangladesh and received 51.
On February 19, 2020, the Ministry of Finance ruled that “disruption of supply chains due to spread of Coronavirus will be covered” under the force majeure clause of government contracts. On May 13 it went further. For contractors not already in default, dates for obligations falling due from February 20 “shall stand extended for a period not less than three months and not more than six months,” without “any cost or penalty on the contractor/concessionaire.”
The same day, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs asked the states to “treat the pandemic COVID-19 as ‘force majeure'” under the real estate law and to “automatically extend registration of all real estate projects registered under RERA by 6 months.”
Many Indian contracts name a sum that one side must pay if it breaks the contract. Under Section 74 of the Contract Act, a court does not simply award that sum. In Fateh Chand v. Balkishan Dass, decided in 1963, the Supreme Court said the court “will award to the party aggrieved only reasonable compensation not exceeding the amount named or penalty stipulated.”
The figure in the contract is a ceiling, not a price.
Indian contracts for public works often expect prices and dates to move. In a contract of the Delhi Development Authority, quoted by the Delhi High Court in 1998, clause 10CC provides that if the prices of materials “and/or wages of labour required for execution of the work increase the contractor shall be compensated for such increase.” The clause applies to longer contracts.
In the General Conditions of Contract that IIT Hyderabad uses for its works, clause 5 covers delays from force majeure, bad weather, strikes or “any other cause like above, which, in the reasoned opinion of the Engineer-in-Charge is beyond the Contractor’s control.” In such cases the authority “shall, if justified, give a fair and reasonable extension of time.”
In 2011 and 2012 Indonesia barred the export of its coal below a benchmark price. Adani Power, with a plant at Mundra in Gujarat, and Coastal Gujarat Power, a subsidiary of Tata Power, then “filed petitions before the CERC seeking compensatory tariff,” a higher price than their power purchase agreements set. On April 11, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled on the matter in Energy Watchdog v. CERC.
The matter did not end there. In 2018 the Gujarat government formed a high-power committee, which recommended changes to the tariffs. “The Gujarat government has approached the Supreme Court seeking to amend the PPAs,” the trade journal Power Line reported in October 2018.
India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. On January 25, 2023, India sent Pakistan a notice seeking to modify it. In August 2024 “India has served another notice to Pakistan seeking a review and modification of the Indus Water Treaty,” Deccan Herald reported.
On April 23, 2025, after the attack at Pahalgam, India announced that the treaty “will be held in abeyance with immediate effect.”
Under Section 55 of the Indian Contract Act of 1872, a missed date makes a contract voidable only if the parties intended time to be essential. Otherwise the other side can only claim compensation.
In Chand Rani v. Kamal Rani, decided in December 1992, the Supreme Court applied this to the sale of immovable property. In such sales “there is no presumption as to time being the essence of the contract.” Elsewhere the judgment puts it more strongly: “there is presumption against time being the essence of the contract.”
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena and the BJP campaigned on a promise to push Enron’s Dabhol power project “into the Arabian Sea.” After winning the 1995 state election, their government halted construction on August 3, 1995.
In 1996 the state electricity board and Enron renegotiated the contract. Enron cut its power costs by 20 percent, and the board agreed to buy more electricity.