Learning Outcome: After completion of this lesson, students will be able to - a) Define Consideration b) Describe Invented Consideration

1. INTRODUCTIONTOTHE
DOCTRINE OF CONSIDERATION
PREETI KANA SIKDER
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF LAW & JUSTICE
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY

2. THE DOCTRINE OF CONSIDERATION
• Consideration developed as the ‘proof’ that a contract existed
rather than a merely gratuitous promise.
• The rules of contract seek to differentiate between agreements
where there is something to be gained by both parties, as is the
case in a contract, and agreements which are purely gratuitous,
as are gifts.

3. THE DOCTRINE OF CONSIDERATION
• By the seventeenth century, in the case of agreements other
than for land, the courts would demand evidence of the ‘proof’
that a bargain in fact existed.
• The giving of ‘consideration’ by both sides became the
traditional method of ensuring that agreements other than
related to transfer of land were contractual.

4. THE DOCTRINE OF CONSIDERATION
•It was the quid pro quo , the proof that a bargain in
fact existed.
•If no consideration could be found then the
agreement could not be enforced.

5. CONSIDERATION ISTHE EVIDENCE
OFTHE INTENTION OFTHE PARTIES
TO BE BOUND

6. C J HARMSON IN ‘THE REFORM OF
CONSIDERATION’ (1938)
• Consideration, offer and acceptance are an indivisible trinity,
facets of one identical notion which is that of bargain.
• We can no doubt separate offer, acceptance and consideration
for our convenience…but they are logical and interdependent
entities abstracted from the one entire reality which is ‘bargain’.

7. CONSIDERATION IN ENGLISH LAW
• The purpose of the requirement of consideration is to put
some legal limits on the enforceability of agreements even
where they are intended to be legally binding.
• English law limits the enforceability of agreements (not in
deeds) by reference to a complex and multifarious body of
rules known as “the doctrine of consideration.”

8. TRADITIONAL DEFINITION OF CONSIDERATION
The requirement is that ‘something of value’ must
be given and consideration is either some
detriment to the promisee (in that he may give
value) or some benefit to the promisor (in that he
may receive value).

9. “RECIPROCITY”
AN INFORMAL GRATUITOUS PROMISE DOES NOT
AMOUNTTO CONTRACT

10. WHAT IS CONSIDERATION?
•Classic definition was provided in Currie v Misa
(1875) -
A valuable consideration, in the sense of the law, may consist
either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the
one party, or some forbearance (The act of abstaining from proceeding
against a delinquent debtor; delay in exacting the enforcement of a right), detriment,
loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other.

11. INVENTED CONSIDERATION
English courts often tend to regard an act or
forbearance as the consideration for a promise even
though it may not have been the object of the
promisor to secure it, or the promisee may not have
consciously realized that he was giving what was, in
fact, consideration.

12. INVENTED CONSIDERATION
•The courts have also sometimes regarded the possibility
of some prejudice to the promisee as a detriment
without regard to the question whether it has in fact
been suffered.
•These practices may be called ‘inventing consideration’

13. LEGAL DEFINITION
• Interpretation Clause: Section 2
d) When, at the desire of the promisor, the promisee or any other
person has done or abstained from doing, or does or abstains
from doing, or promises to do or to abstain from doing,
something, such act or abstinence or promise is called a
consideration for the promise.

14. THANKYOU