SECTION 69 OF THE INDIAN CONTRACT ACT
Chapter V (section 68 to 72) of the Indian Contract Act deals with ‘certain relations
resembling those created by contract’. In many cases, the law requires a person to comply
with an obligation, even if he has neither breached any contract nor committed any tort. Such
obligations are termed as quasi-contractual obligations.1 Although the chapter avoids the term
‘quasi-contact’, it incorporates those obligations which are known as quasi-contracts in
English law.
Section 69 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 states:
‘Reimbursement of person paying money due by another, in payment of which he is
interested.— A person who is interested in the payment of money which another is bound by
law to pay, and who therefore pays it, is entitled to be reimbursed by the other.’2
QUASI-CONTRACTS
Although, the Indian Contract Act, 1872 does not provide a definition for quasi-contracts, it
does refer to such legal obligations as ‘certain relations resembling those created by
contract’3. Quasi-Contracts may be defined as obligations imposed by law to prevent unjust
enrichment. They are not actual contracts and the remedy available to plaintiff is the recovery
of benefit accrued to the defendant.4
A quasi-contract is a legal fiction invented by common law courts. This was done to allow
recovery by contractual remedies in cases where there is no contract, but where
circumstances are such that principles of equity and good conscience necessitate a recovery
as though there had been a promise. Since it is not a true contract, it is not based on mutual
assent or intention of the parties. 5 It is also known as a ‘contract implied in law’ 6 or a
‘constructive contract’7. In the absence of a true contract, either express or implied in fact,
courts may look towards obligations created by quasi-contract for recovery. 8 Quasi-
contractual liabilities are based on the doctrine of unjust enrichment and the doctrine of
1
http://www.penacclaims.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Maitreya.pdf
2
Cite section
3
Cite ICA it I in the title of Chapter V
4
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/quasi_contract_(or_quasi-contract)
5
Cite this black’s law dictionary
6
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1322006.pdf
7
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1322006.pdf
8
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/quasi_contract_(or_quasi-contract)
quantum meruit.9 They are important as they aim to render a fair outcome in a situation where
one party is unjustly enriched at the cost of the other. They fill gaps in areas where other
more conventional legal actions do not extend comfortably and may even be used as a last
resort remedy.10
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF QUASI-CONTRACTS
The common law of contracts developed around a form of action known as assumpsit which
emerged towards the beginning of the fifteenth century with many of its characteristic
doctrines evolving in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.11
In the medieval times there was no differentiation between contracts and quasi contracts. So
the courts of common law developed their own way to handle various miscellaneous
obligations which later came to be known as quasi-contracts.
In the middle of the fourteenth century, writ of account was the most frequently used personal
actions. Although this action was founded on the requirement of an existing relationship, the
scope of duty was subsequently widened to render the defendant accountable to the plaintiff
in the absence of privity of relationship between them and to enable the plaintiff to recover
money paid under a mistake.
By the sixteenth century, the use of writ of account started declining and it was superseded by
the writ of debt. This writ was used to recover not only rent, the price of goods sold or a loan
of money, but also miscellaneous items like penalties due under statute or by law, customary
obligations and judgment debts. A defendant would be found liable in debt not because he
made a promise that he had failed to perform, but because he had received a benefit for which
hadn’t returned the agreed-upon value.12 The use of this form of action continued till the
seventeenth century until indebitatus assumpsit took its place.
The recognition that if the plaintiff could show that a second promise to pay existed after the
creation of the obligation sought to be enforced, his action in assumpsit would be free of the
strict procedural rules of the writ of debt became the first step in the development of
assumpsit as a functional substitute for debt.13
9
http://www.penacclaims.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Maitreya.pdf
10
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=facpubs
11
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198255734.001.0001/acprof-
9780198255734
12
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=facpubs
13
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=facpubs
The decision in Slade v. Morley,14 [1602] which held that the second express promise was
implied from facts was the next step in the process. The action created by this judgement,
known as indebitatus assumpsit or special assumpsit, became a remedy which was
substantially equivalent to debt.15
The final step in the development of quasi-contract can be traced to the opinion of Lord
Mansfield in Moses v. Macferlan,16 a case involving an action in indebitatus assumpsit. On
the basis of this case, Lord Mansfield was the first commentator to suggest that obligations
based upon fictional promises should be enforced. 17
The development of quasi-contracts was made possible by the emergence of indebitatus
assumpsit. Indebitatus assumpsit was used to enforce those quasi-contractual claims that had
previously been enforced by using the writs of debt account. The contract or promise alleged
in the pleading of these cases were complete fiction. By the end of the eighteenth century, the
foundations of the modern law of quasi- contract had been laid.
14
Cite case slade v. morley
15
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=facpubs
16
Cite case
17
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=facpubs
