Minor's contract Part 3

 Minor's contract Part 3

Sec.10 of the Contract Act provides that all agreements contracts if they are made by the free consent of parties competent to contract, for a lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not hereby expressly declared to be void.

Sec.11 of the Contract Act which lays down that every person is competent to contract who is of the age of majority. It follows that a person who is not the age of majority is not a person competent to contract and make a lawful contract within the meaning of Sec.10 of the Contract Act.

Under the English law a minor’s contract was only voidable at his option. Even under the Indian Contract Act was also to be regarded as such.

Under the Common Law of England a minor’s contract is not generally void but voidable at this option and if it appeared to the English Court to be for his benefit it should even be binding specially if the contract was for necessaries.

But in 1903 the Privy Council in Mohori Bibee vs. Dharmodas Ghose emphasizes the difference between the Indian law and the English law and clearly lays down that the Indian Contract Act makes it essential that all contracting parties should be competent to make a contract and a person who by reason of infancy is incompetent to contract, cannot make a contract within the meaning of the Act. 

While minor could not enter into a contract, the natural guardian who was representing the minor, could do so and that there is nothing either in the Contract Act or in the Partnership Act which prevents a natural guardian to enter into a contract of partnership for and on behalf of the minor. 

A guardian’s capacity to act for and on behalf of the minor within the two limits expressed by the Privy Council that he must do so within the scope of his authority and for the benefit of the minor, is unquestioned.

But even a guardian while he can supply the deficiency suffered by the minor in age in law cannot supply the defects which the law prohibits. 

If the law, as Sec.30 of the Partnership Act prohibits a minor to become a partner in a firm, then no guardian acting on his behalf can over-reach that law and argue that as the guardian is a major, the minor becomes a partner of the firm which the law expressly prohibits because his guardian did it for him. Such a contract will be hit by Sec.23 of the Contract Act on the ground that it is forbidden by law. Therefore in such a case the guardian’s contract on behalf of minor resulting in making the minor a partner in a firm will be void ab initio and not voidable.

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