1. The document discusses the concept of coercion or duress in contract law. Coercion is defined as committing or threatening any act forbidden by the Indian Penal Code or unlawfully detaining property with the intention of causing someone to enter an agreement. 2. Coercion removes a person's freedom of choice and substitutes their aims with those coercing them. It affects the constraints under which a person maximizes their objectives, rather than removing their objectives entirely. 3. Coercion under Indian law is broader than the English law concept of duress, which originally only recognized threats of violence. Duress now includes threats to property or economic interests. However, legitimate commercial pressure to

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CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF KASHMIR
SCHOOL OF LEGAL STUDIES
SUBJECT: CONTRACT LAW I
TITLE OF ASSIGNMENT: COERCION (DURESS)
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. GUL AFROZA
SUBMITTED BY:
WASEEM RAMZAN DAR
ENROLLMENT NO. 120746
SEMESTER IV BALLB

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INTRODUCTION
Coercion can be defined as “It is the committing, or threatening to commit, any act
forbidden by the Indian Penal Code, or the unlawful detaining, or threatening to
detain, any property, to the prejudice of any person whatever, with the intention of
causing any person to enter into an agreement. Coercion is the practice of compelling
a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way (whether through
action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form of pressure or
force. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical or psychological harm in
order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may then lead to
the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced. The term is often associated
with circumstances which involve the unethical use of threats or harm to achieve some
objective. Coercion may also serve as a form of justification for a conclusion in a
logical fallacy or non-logical argument. Coercion may also refer to more subtle means
of influence such as sweet talking, begging, charming, and seduction.
“Coercion” defined as, “Coercion” is the committing, or threatening to commit,
any act forbidden by the Indian Penal Code (S 15 of 1860), or the unlawful detaining,
or threatening to detain, any property, to the prejudice of any person whatever, with
the intention of causing any person to enter into any agreement. Coercion is the
practice of compelling a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way
(whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form
of pressure or force. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical or
psychological harm in order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further
harm may then lead to the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced .Any
person’s set of feasible choices is obtained from the combination of two elements: the
initial endowment (the perceived initial state of the world, which the chosen actions
are going to affect) and the transformation rules (which state how any chosen action
will change the initial endowment, according to the person’s perception).It follows
that coercion could in principle take place by purposely manipulating either the
transformation rules or the initial endowment (or both). In practice, however, the
detailed choice reaction of a victim to a change in initial endowment is generally

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unpredictable. Hence effective coercion can only be carried out through manipulation
of the transformation rules. This is done by the credible threat of some injury,
conditional on the victim‟s choice. Often, it involves the actual inflicting of injury in
order to make the threat credible, but it is the threat of (further) injury which brings
about the change in transformation rules.
Coercion does not remove entirely the victim’s ability to choose, nor does it
necessarily affect his or her ranking of potential alternatives. As Roman jurists used to
say, coactus volui, tamen volui (I willed under coercion, but still I willed). In the
terminology of rational choice theory, coercion does not remove a person‟s objective
function, but only affects the constraints under which such function is maximised.
Yet, the purpose of coercion is to substitute one‟s aims to those of the victim. For this
reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to
freedom.
Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the kind of injury
threatened, second according to its aims and scope, and finally according to its effects,
from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend.
EXTENT OF COERCION UNDER THE ACT
The words of this section are far wider than anything which then existed in the
English authorities; it must be assumed that this was intended. As the definition stands
the coercion invalidating a contract need not proceed from a party to a contract or be
immediately directed against a person whom it is intended to cause to enter into the
Contract or any member of his household, or affect his property, or be specifically to
his prejudice. This was not so under the earlier English law on “duress” The Concept
of “duress” has however been rapidly evolving and these differences no longer seem
to hold. In fact, duress under English law is now perhaps broader than coercion as
defined under the Act.

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ACTS FORBIDDEN BY IPC
The words “act forbidden by the Indian Penal Code” make it necessary for the court
to, decide in a civil action, if that branch of the section is relied on, whether the
alleged act of coercion is such as to amount to an offence. The mere fact that an
agreement to refer matters in dispute to arbitration was entered into during the
pendency, and in fear, of criminal proceedings is not sufficient to avoid the agreement
on the ground of “coercion”, though the agreement may be void as oppose to public
policy within the meaning of S.23. It must further be shown that the complainant or
some other person on his behalf took advantage of the state of mind of the accused to
apply pressure upon him to procure his consent. To threaten a criminal prosecution is
not by itself an act which is forbidden by the Indian Penal Code. Such act could only
be forbidden if it amounts to a threat to file a false charge. . So if a false charge of
criminal trespass is brought against a person and he is coerced into an agreement give
half of his house to complainant the agreement will not be enforced.This was also the
position of common law. The rule in equity was however the opposite and a threat by
one party to prosecute the other for a criminal offence could constitute a ground for
setting aside a contract. It has been suggested that the rule of equity represents the
prevailing position of English Law.
In a Madras case the question arose whether if a person held out a threat of
committing suicide to his wife and son if they refused to execute a release in his favor,
and the wife and son in consequences of that threat executed the release, the release
could be said to have obtained by coercion within the meaning of this section. Wallis,
C.J., and Seshagiri Aiyar, J., answered the question in the affirmative, holding in
effect that though a threat to commit suicide was not punishable under the Indian
Penal Code, it must be deemed to be forbidden, as an attempt to commit suicide was
punishable under the Code (S. 309). Oldfield, J., answered the question in the negative
on the ground that the present section should be construed strictly, and that an act was
not punishable under the Penal Code could not be said to be forbidden by that Code.8
That view seemed to be correct. The penal code forbids only what it declares
punishable.

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A demand by workers under the Industrial Dispute Act backed by a threat of Strike
being not illegal, the threat of strike would not amount to coercion.Under the language
of the section as it stands, a threat to commit an offence under any law other than the
Indian Penal Code 1860, may not amount to coercion. Recognising this, the Law
Commission of India had recommend a wider expression to include penal laws other
than the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
UNLAWFUL DETAINING OF PROPERTY
A refusal on the part of mortgagee to convey the equity of redemption except on
certain terms is not an unlawful detaining or threatening to detain any property within
the meaning of this section.
However, refusal by the outgoing agent, whose term expired, to hand over the
account books to the new incoming agent until, the principal gave him a complete
release would amount to coercion.
COMPARISON WITH ENGLISH LAW
The following comparison has been attempted by the madras high court.
KARUPPAYEE AMMAL V. KARUPPIAH PILLAI, (1987)1 MAD LJ 138
“What the Indian law calls, coercion is called in English law „duress or menace‟.
Duress is said to consist in actual or threatened violence or imprisonment of the
contracting party or his wife, parent or child, by the other party or by anyone in S.15 is
much wider and includes the unlawful detention of property also. Further, coercion
may be committed by any person, not necessarily a party, or his party, or his parent,
wife or child. It may be directed against any person, even immediate violence and also
unnerve a person of ordinary firmness of mind,these requests are not necessary in
Indian law.”

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Under the English law, actual or threatened violence to the victim‟s person has long
been recognized to amount to duress, but duress may consists of actual or threatened
imprisonment, and now also includes wrongful threats to property or threat to seize
goods, and wrongful or illegitimate threats to economic interests, where the victim has
no alternative but to submit. The effect of duress is not to make the act of the victim
non-voluntarily, nor does it deprive him with a “choice between evils”. The classic
case of duress is, not the lack of will to submit but “the victim‟s intentional
submission arising from the realization that there is no practical choice open to him”
.There has developed tremendous jurisprudence around the concept of duress,
especially “economic duress”. Devising a test for this concept involves a delicate
balancing act for, in a sense, all contracts are made under pressure- each party
“threatens” the other that unless his terms are accepted, other party will not get the
reciprocal benefits under the contract. The test in English law has been to distinguish
between legitimate and illegitimate pressures, and only the latter is said to amount to
duress. Threats to commit an otherwise lawful act are ordinary not duress. Thus, a
threat to breach the contracts in order to reach an agreement as to its variation has
been generally regarded as a legitimate commercial pressure, especially where this is
the result of an unanticipated difficulty or based on a bona fide and reasonable belief
that unless the demand is met, the party would unable to perform. If however the
threat is “immoral or unconscionable”, this might be held to constitute duress. Thus,
an unlawful threat by a trade union to continue the “boycott” of a ship; a threat to
break an existing contract coupled with unreasonable and overwhelming commercial
pressure; refusal to rescue a vessel in distress or those on board save on extortionate
terms; have all been held to be cases involving duress.
The doctrine of economic duress has also been accepted by the Bombay High Court
to be part of Indian law. However to the extent this decision is seen as an authority
importing the doctrine of duress in Indian Law, its correctness is not free from doubt.

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CONCLUSION
In most legal systems, the use of physical specific coercion by private individuals is a
criminal offence in all cases not involving self-defence or similar situations.
The picture is less simple for psychological specific coercion, owing to the general
difficulty in finding clear evidence for it. In most systems psychological coercion is
treated as a criminal offence when it is aimed at extortion, as is typical of blackmail. It
is also punished when it leads to undue influence, defined as a master-slave
relationship.
Finally, economic coercion is generally unlawful under most systems of anti-trust
legislation, where it can amount to either a criminal offence – as under the Sherman
Act of the US – or an administrative offence liable to a mere fine – as under EU
legislation on the abuse of a dominant position. It is important however to remember
that trade unions and other groups of organised workers are mostly exempted from
this general principle for acts of economic coercion (like strikes) against their
employer. Legal methods themselves may employ coercion, such as when a lawsuit is
threatened if a person does not comply with the wishes of the plaintiff. Specific
coercion may be used as a legal defence in criminal cases for acts committed under
threat of injury. Similarly, one may claim the legal nullity of a contract signed under
duress.
In both cases, however, the question arises of whether a "reasonable person" would
have perceived a threat, and reacted in the same way. Moreover, under most modern
legal systems disciplinary coercion cannot be claimed as an exculpating circumstance
for war crimes committed under unlawful order.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. ANSON’S LAW OF CONTRACT
2. CONTRACT LAW by AVTAR SINGH
3. INDIAN CONTRACT ACT by Dr. R K BANGIA
4. INDIAN CONTRACT ACT by MULLA