Sometimes the words used by parties in their contracts are sufficiently clear and can easily be applied without recourse to interpretation. But that is often not the case in practice. And once parties are in a dispute, each side tends to interpret the agreed terms in a manner that suits their respective interests. Confronted with competing interpretations of what was ostensibly agreed upon, it is the task of the court to arrive at the correct or proper interpretation of the contract. This task is a critical one but the Contract Act itself does not offer any guidance or specific rules about interpretation. Those rules are contained in judge-made common law and, to some extent, in the Evidence Act.

Contractual interpretation by Indian courts tends to be highly case-specific and the focus is more on the outcome in a given case with less emphasis on tying conclusions to more general principles of interpretation. Even where general principles are discussed, there is a good deal of inconsistency within the case law. The interplay between the provisions of the Evidence Act and the judge-made common law in this area is complex, and that adds to the difficulty in identifying clear principles (especially because courts sometimes ignore the requirements of the Evidence Act when setting out particular principles of interpretation).

In what follows, we discuss the principles which, in our view, set out the broad contours within which the exercise of interpretation is likely to take place. At the outset, we discuss the threshold issue of how the terms of the contract are identified.

Chapter 10 explores how international public policy can unlock business opportunities for multinational corporations against the backdrop of rising global temperatures. The chapter examines how international climate agreements and climate-oriented foreign aid support the growth of green industries through targets, incentives, signaling effects, and direct financial assistance. It argues that well-designed international frameworks mobilize capital and create enabling ecosystems that support innovative and forward-thinking firms. The discussion then turns to the mechanisms through which intergovernmental organizations collaborate with firms to advance climate solutions. Three forms of engagement are highlighted: cross-sectoral alliances that link governments, businesses, and civil society, innovative financing mechanisms that reduce risk and crowd in private capital, and research, development, and knowledge-sharing platforms that accelerate the diffusion of low-carbon technologies.

Chapter 4 develops a framework for understanding how multinational corporations (MNCs) manage climate risks. It identifies five distinct strategies: accepting the risk as a cost of doing business, adapting through proactive investments or compliance measures, transferring risk to other actors, diversifying operations geographically, and avoiding risk by limiting exposure to vulnerable regions. After outlining the logic and trade-offs of each approach, the chapter investigates whether firms systematically avoid the countries that are most exposed to climate threats. Using cross-national data on foreign direct investment, the analysis explores variation across sectors and dimensions of climate vulnerability, such as ecosystem, infrastructure, and water-related risks. The findings demonstrate that MNCs avoid climate-vulnerable countries, while also showing that firms’ risk management strategies vary by sector and climate risk type.

I argue that through his account of the meaning of, and need for, solidarity, Rorty offers a non-juridical vision of liberal community built upon a political ethos of hope. This political ethos of hope is necessary to combat the threat posed by pathological individualism to contemporary liberal democratic societies. This ethos is characterised by attention to the cruelty that we inadvertently cause to others through the exercise of our private freedoms. It involves an explicit commitment to curiosity and an implicit demand for humility in our interactions with our fellows. These values have radical and far-reaching implications for Rorty’s account of political conversation – how we approach our dialogues with others, and the language that we use therein – in his idealised liberal community. I contrast these implications with deliberative democratic norms and put distance between Rorty’s view of political conversation and J. S. Mill’s account of free expression in a liberal society and the accounts of epistemic injustice offered by Fricker and Medina. I attempt a nuanced interpretation of Rorty’s understanding of the relevance of identity to politics.

The Contract Act does not have a specific provision dealing with whether parties must have an intention to create legal relations. Under English law, an agreement is not enforceable as a contract unless the parties intended to enter into legal relations. The English law rule is derived from Balfour v. Balfour where Atkin L.J. ruled that an agreement between husband and wife could not be enforced because ‘the parties did not intend that [the agreement] should be attended by legal consequences’. Although the Contract Act does not contain an equivalent requirement, there are Indian decisions that have considered and applied the rule established by Balfour v. Balfour. The Supreme Court has not entirely excluded the possibility that such a requirement may be part of the Indian law of contract (although it has expressed scepticism about introducing such a rule as a supplement to the statutory requirements under the Contract Act). There is sparse authority on this point under Indian law and the position remains open.

In CIT v. Kameshwar Singh the Patna High Court had to determine whether a promise made by a maharaja to the vicereine of India to make donations to the Viceroy's War Purposes Fund gave rise to a binding contract. The question arose in a tax proceeding. Having made the donations, the maharaja claimed that the amount donated was exempt from tax in his hands. The exemption depended on the nature of the settlement or disposition, and the extent to which it was revocable. After examining whether there existed only a mere promise or a legally enforceable agreement, the High Court concluded that there was no binding contract. The High Court cited Balfour v. Balfour and noted that it was ‘no intention of the parties in entering into the agreement that any legal obligation should be created’.

Chapter 2 lays the foundations for the study and further clarifies its scope. Unhealthy lifestyles are defined here as collective patterns of unhealthy behaviour, based on choices from options available to people according to their life chances. This definition highlights four key dimensions central to the book: the health risks associated with those behaviours, their consumable nature, their voluntary character and, finally, the relevance of social norms and structural factors. The chapter explores the health dimension in greater detail for each of the three categories of products studied here, tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods, clarifying the health risks to which consumers are exposed and introducing the central regulatory questions raised by each category.

A contingent contract is one where the parties make the enforceability of their contract subject to the happening or non-happening of some uncertain future event. Thus, there exists a concluded contract, a meeting of minds, but the enforceability of that contract stands deferred until the happening or non-happening of the event. Formation is complete, but the operation and enforceability of the contract is suspended.

Chapter III of the Contract Act (Sections 31 to 36) addresses contingent contracts. These statutory provisions ought, in our view, to be restricted to cases where the entirety of the contract is deferred until the happening or non-happening of an uncertain future event. In other words, Chapter III covers contingent contracts, not conditional obligations under a contract. A true contingent contract is one where neither party can be called upon to perform any obligation under the contract until the future uncertain event has either happened or not happened. Additionally, in our view, the contingent contracts covered by Chapter III of the Contract Act are ones where the contingency is collateral to the contract, that is, there is no obligation assumed by of one of the parties to bring about (or not bring about) the contingency.

Many contracts contain conditional obligations, and disputes about performance will be resolved principally through contractual interpretation. No reference to Chapter III is necessary in such cases (although judicial decisions often, wrongly, refer to it). A prominent example of unnecessary reliance on Chapter III arises in cases involving force majeure clauses.

Commitment to hope has meaningful implications for political philosophy itself: it involves a specific orientation and attitude towards theoretical reflection and its limits. To illustrate Rorty’s invocation of Dewey’s opposition of hope to knowledge, I turn to his reading of Rawls’s political liberalism. I first consider some of the substantive commitments shared by Rorty’s and Rawls’s political liberalism. I explore their complicated understandings of religious expression within liberal society, suggesting that their commitment to hope shapes their account of the legitimacy of expressions of moral faith within politics. I show how we can interpret Rawls’s intellectual project in terms of Rorty’s Hegelian understanding of hope through examination of concepts such as ‘realistic utopia’, ‘public reason’, and ‘the burdens of judgement’. I argue that when we read Rawls’s work with hope in mind, we sharpen our understanding of his philosophy while dissolving many apparent problems raised by its critics, including the view that it fails relevant tests of normative or epistemological justifiability and that it grapples insufficiently with lingering historical injustices.

Courts can sometimes order parties to return benefits which they have obtained from other persons. This type of ‘restitutionary’ remedy arises when B is ordered to return money or property given to it by A, or to compensate for services rendered to it by A. It is important to appreciate that the basis for these orders is non-contractual. Indeed, if there is a relevant and subsisting contractual obligation between the parties, that will usually exclude any such restitutionary remedy.

This chapter considers the restitutionary remedies provided in the Contract Act, and how those remedies apply in various situations of contractual failure. This is a complex area of law and there are many issues which remain unresolved in Indian law. In this chapter, we set out an outline of the statutory framework and provide a brief account of how, in our view, that framework ought to apply when contracts, as well as purported contracts, collapse for various reasons. This chapter does not seek to provide a comprehensive account of the Indian law of unjust enrichment and restitution. Instead, it deals with a particular facet of that much wider subject.

THE STATUTORY FRAMEWORK

Orders for restitution are usually based on statutory duties (imposed under provisions such as Sections 64 and 65 of the Contract Act) or on judicial decisions made in the exercise of statutory powers (conferred under provisions such as Sections 30 and 33 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963). In addition, orders for restitution may also be based on the extra-statutory common law but this is much more controversial.

The key provisions in the Contract Act providing for duties to make restitution are Sections 64, 65, 70 and 72.

• • Sections 64 and 65 should be considered together. Of the two, Section 64 has a narrower scope. It only applies when a voidable contract is rescinded, and it only imposes duties of restitution on the person who is rescinding the voidable contract.