Bill to amend 50-year-old law on breach of biz contract tabled

A bill proposing to grant a party rights to seek damages from the other side in case of a breach of a business contract and also reduce discretion of courts in such matters was introduced in the Lok Sabha today.
The Specific Relief (amendment) Bil, 2017 is aimed at tweaking a 54-year-old law that deals with specific fulfillment of a contract as part of the government's ease of doing business policy.
The Union Cabinet had last week approved amendments to the Specific Relief Act, 1963, and the bill concerned was introduced by Minster of State for Law P P Chaudhary.

The present law provides for law relating to certain kind of specific relief. The act is a remedy which aims at the exact fulfillment of an obligation or specific performance of the contract rather than grant of a general relief or damages or compensation. The Specific Relief Act has not been amended since its inception.
The amendments propose that after two parties enter into an agreement and one of them breaks the contract, the affected party will have the freedom to get the contract executed by a third party.
Also, the affected party can get costs and other expenses recovered from the party which broke the agreement.

In case the contract relates to infrastructure projects, the court would grant injunction after satisfying itself that it would not cause any impediment or delay in the progress or completion of the project.