The Common Law in India - College of Social Sciences and ...

Civil Law 91the legal relations of the parties to them were to befound in the Contract Act. The remedies by way ofcompensation available to parties for the breach ofcontractual obligations could be pursued in the mannerprovided in the Civil Procedure Code. But the courtsof equity in England had evolved special reliefs bywhich the performance of the very obligations undertakenby persons could be enforced against them.The purpose of the Specific Relief Act was to makethese equitable reliefs to some extent available topersons entering into contracts.The reliefs given by the civil courts might bedivided broadly into two classes: those by which thesuitor obtained the very thing to which he was entitled,and those by which he obtained not that verything, but compensation for the loss of it. The firstkind of relief was known as specific relief and thesecond was known as or at any rate might be termedcompensatory relief. The Specific Relief Act does notdeal with compensatory relief except incidentally andin so far as such relief is either supplementary to oralternative to specific relief. Its main purpose is toaward " specific relief "; to order the performance bythe defaulting person of the specific act which he hadagreed to do. Such relief includes the ordering ofspecific performance of contracts and also orders byway of injunction which prevent persons from doingwrong and which may be called " preventive relief."Thus the Act, though shortly styled the Specific ReliefAct, deals with specific as well as preventive relief.Under the head of " Preventive Relief " it treats ofperpetual injunctions. The courts are also authorised