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.”
Bichauliya. The Rekhta dictionary translates it as mediator, arbitrator, go-between and middleman. Its Hindi definitions add a person who mediates to settle a deal, a person who steps in between to get something done, and a person who arranges a marriage or an engagement.
Section 7 of the Right to Information Act of 2005 gives a public information officer thirty days to decide on a request. If the officer “fails to give decision on the request for information within the period specified,” the officer “shall be deemed to have refused the request.”
In 1986 Parliament passed the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill. President Zail Singh neither signed it nor sent it back to Parliament. The bill remained in limbo. His silence became known as a pocket veto.
In 1990 the government of V.P. Singh withdrew the bill.
The governor of Tamil Nadu, R.N. Ravi, held back ten bills that the state assembly had passed a second time. On April 8, 2025, two judges of the Supreme Court found his delay illegal. They set time limits for governors and the President and declared the bills assented to.
On November 20, 2025, answering a reference from the President, a Constitution Bench held that courts cannot fix such timelines and that deemed assent is not consistent with the Constitution. It added that governors “cannot sit on Bills indefinitely.”
A Lok Adalat, a people’s court, settles disputes by compromise. Under the Legal Services Authorities Act of 1987, it arrives “at a compromise or settlement between the parties.” Its award “shall be deemed to be a decree of a Civil Court,” and “no appeal shall lie to any Court against the award.”
Since 2015 National Lok Adalats have been held across India on single days, each disposing of a large number of pending cases.