CASE
COMMENTARY
Title
of the case
Balfour
vs. Balfour
Year
1919
Facts-
The
defendant was employed on a government job in Ceylon. He went to England with
his wife on leave. The wife could not come back to Ceylon with her husband. The
husband promised to pay a specific amount per month to his wife as maintenance
for the period she had to live apart. The husband failed to pay the amount as
promised by him to his wife.
As a result of it, wife sued her husband for the compensation.
Issue-
Whether
it resulted in any contract?
Is
it fulfilling the essential elements of a contract if it is an agreement?
Held-
It
was observed that it is fulfilling the essential elements of an agreement but
it does not resulted into a contract because it lacked an important element
that is impliedly required. That element is the intention to create legal
relations.
Justice Atkin
observed that it appears to him that the arrangement between husband and wife
doesn’t result into a contract in the ordinary circumstances because they
generally do not intend that they should be attended by legal consequences.
Contemporary-
In
the present era, this judgment has got a wide recognition in the sense that the
essential ingredient apart from the essentials of a contract is the intention
to create legal relation. Even in the Indian Contract Act, 1872, intention to
contract is not mentioned as an essential ingredient under Section 10 but it
has been recognized in the judicial precedents such as CWT vs Abdul Hassan
(1988) and even accepted when the cases arose of such a nature that the
intention became an objective test to determine the intention or willingness to
enter into legal relationships.
References
Balfour vs. Balfour (1919) 2 K.B. 571
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