Specific Relief Act Section 18 — Non-enforcement except with variation

CHAPTER II SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE OF CONTRACTS

General

Summary

If you are asking a court to enforce a written contract, and the other side claims that the contract was actually different from what is written, you cannot get the contract enforced exactly as written. Instead, the court will only enforce it with the variation the other side has raised, but only in specific situations. These situations are: if the written contract differs from what was actually agreed due to fraud, a mistake of fact, or misrepresentation, or if it leaves out terms that were part of the deal; if the written contract was meant to achieve a certain legal result but is not worded to do so; or if both parties changed the contract's terms after signing it.

Official Text

Where a plaintiff seeks specific performance of a contract in writing, to which the defendant sets up a variation, the plaintiff cannot obtain the performance sought, except with the variation so set up, in the following cases, namely:—

(a) where by fraud, mistake of fact or mis-representation, the written contract of which performance is sought is in its terms or effect different from what the parties agreed to, or does not contain all the terms agreed to between the parties on the basis of which the defendant entered into the contact;

(b) where the object of the parties was to produce a certain legal result which the contract as framed is not calculated to produce;

(c) where the parties have, subsequently to the execution of the contract, varied its terms.