FROM IPC TO BHARTIYA NYAYA SANHITA: RECASTING 'COERCION' UNDER SECTION 15 OF THE INDIAN CONTRACT ACT IN CASES OF THREAT TO COMMIT SUICIDE

Abstract

Indian Contract Act, 1872, section 15 is premised on the fact that a contract ought to be seen as a product of free and voluntary assent and not through the exertion of unreasonable force or coercion. To a short time not so long ago, the Indian courts have conceptualised the concept of coercion within the scope of criminal law, and the term act prohibited by law has been used in many instances, interchangeably with that which is imprisonable under the Indian Penal Code, 1860. A vexed legal debate has been whether a suicide threat meets the definition of coercion or not in the scheme of things. Previously, a criminalisation of an attempt to commit suicide by Section 309 of the IPC was used as the actual or hypothetical ground to make forcible what was said on the ground of such criminalisation and to rescind the contracts made by some threats.