Indian Contract Act Section 44 — Effect of release of one joint promisor
CHAPTER IV OF THE PERFORMANCE OF CONTRACTS — By whom contracts must be performed
Commercial / Corporate
Summary
When two or more people make a joint promise, the person to whom the promise is made can release one of those promisors from the promise. Doing so does not discharge the remaining joint promisors from their responsibility to fulfil the promise.
Releasing one joint promisor also does not free that released person from responsibility towards the other joint promisors. In other words, the released promisor may still be answerable to the other promisors, even though the promisee has let them go.
Official Text
Where two or more persons have made a joint promise, a release of one of such joint promisors by the promisee does not discharge the other joint promisor or joint promisors; neither does it free the joint promisors so released from responsibility to the other joint promisor or joint promisors.1