Free Consent

Under Section 10 of Contracts Act 1950, it is stated that all agreement are contracts if they are made by free consent of parties. What is free consent?? By definition, consent means that the parties must have agreed upon the same sense. Free consents must happen in an agreement or else it is invalid. A contract without free consent is said to be void or happened to be a voidable contract depending on the situation of the cases. A contract is said without free consent when the following happened;

1) Coercion
Committing or threatening to commit any act forbidden by Penal Code or unlawful act done with intention of causing the person to enter the agreement

2) Undue Influence
Use ‘particular’ relationship to dominant or pressure the person to enter into an agreement

3) Fraud
Certain acts committed with intent to persuade another party to enter into a contract

4) Misrepresentation
Similar as fraud. The difference between fraud and misrepresentation is in case of misrepresentation, the person making representation believes the representation is true and in fraud, he does not believe the representation is true

5) Mistake
If parties enter into agreement by mistake, the contract is said to be void.

When consent to an agreement is caused by coercion, fraud, misrepresentation, the agreement is a contract voidable at the option of the party whose consent was so caused [Section 19 (1)]