State whether specific performance can be obtained for: (i) contract to marry; (ii) contract to lend money on mortgage; (iii) contract by guardian to purchase immovable property for minor.

(i) Contract to Marry

A contract to marry cannot be specifically enforced. This rule is settled, absolute, and admits of no exceptions. The law has long recognised that marriage is a relationship of the most intimate personal character, resting not merely on consent given at one moment in time, but on continuing mutual volition, emotion, and personal regard. To direct a party to marry another by the decree of a court would be to compel the performance of a deeply personal act — and a court of equity will never do what it knows to be practically meaningless or morally oppressive.

The statutory foundation of this rule lies in the unamended Section 14(1)(b) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, which excluded contracts of which the performance involved acts so personal in character that the court could neither enforce them nor supervise their execution. A contract to marry falls squarely within this exclusion. As the Bombay High Court observed as far back as Purshotam v. Purshotam, (1896) ILR 21 Bom 23, a contract to marry is from its very nature one that the court cannot enforce by specific performance. Even a ceremony of betrothal under Hindu law does not amount to a binding and irrevocable contract capable of specific enforcement — as the courts have consistently held, including in the passage noted authoritatively in the texts: "A suit for specific performance of a contract to give in marriage will not lie; the remedy is an action for damages for breach of the contract".

The reason is not merely procedural. Even if a court were to pass such a decree, it could not compel genuine consent, mutual affection, or the willing participation of both parties in a life together. The result of such enforcement would be performance in name only — a hollow and unjust outcome. Therefore, the aggrieved party's remedy, where a promise of marriage is broken, lies entirely in a suit for damages, not in a prayer for specific performance.

(ii) Contract to Lend Money on Mortgage

A contract to lend money on mortgage is, as a general rule, not specifically enforceable. The rationale is drawn from the foundational principle that specific performance lies only where monetary damages cannot adequately compensate the aggrieved party. Since the very subject matter of such a contract is money, a breach of the lender's promise to advance funds can be perfectly remedied by an equivalent sum awarded as damages — the plaintiff can simply borrow from the market. A long and unbroken line of decisions across the High Courts of Allahabad, Madras, Calcutta, Lahore, and Bombay uniformly maintained this rule, and it was explicitly stated in the unamended Section 14(1)(a) of the Act.

However, this general rule is subject to one critical and well-established exception. Where the loan has already been advanced — in whole or in part — and the borrower, having received the money, refuses to execute the agreed mortgage deed, the court will specifically enforce the contract to execute the mortgage. The logic is compelling: the lender has already performed his side of the bargain; the subject matter of the suit is no longer a promise to lend money but an obligation to create security for money already lent. In Jewan Lal Daga v. Nilmani Chaudhuri, AIR 1928 PC 80, the Privy Council firmly held that where the loan has been advanced and the borrower is unwilling to repay at once, the lender's right to have the mortgage executed can be specifically enforced. As the principle stands: "Where money promised as a loan by a mortgagee is not advanced in full, the mortgagor is only entitled to recover damages for non-payment of the balance — he cannot sue for specific performance of the agreement to lend the full sum promised." Conversely, where the money has been paid out in reliance on the promise, the court will not leave the lender without his agreed security.

(iii) Contract by a Guardian to Purchase Immovable Property for a Minor

A contract entered into by a guardian on behalf of a minor to purchase immovable property cannot be specifically enforced against the minor. This rule is rooted not in the general provisions of Section 14, but in the distinct protective principle enshrined in Section 11(2) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, which provides that a contract made by or on behalf of a corporation or other person incompetent to contract in a particular manner or to a particular extent, can be specifically enforced neither by nor against such person.

A minor is a person who, by virtue of Section 11 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, is incompetent to contract. A guardian, though empowered in limited circumstances to act on behalf of the minor, cannot by his act alone bind the minor to a contract which would be void in the minor's own hands. The courts have uniformly held that a contract which a minor could not himself have entered into cannot be enforced against him merely because a guardian purported to act on his behalf. As stated in Dasarath Gayen v. Satyanarayan Ghosh, AIR 1963 Cal 325, where a contract for sale was entered into by an adult on behalf of himself and as the natural guardian of minors, specific performance could be enforced only in respect of the share of the adult — not against the share of the minors.

The protective policy of the law is clear: a minor cannot be bound by a contractual obligation which he was incompetent to create, even through the agency of a guardian. The court will not, therefore, pass a decree for specific performance that would bind the minor's property. It may, however, grant specific performance in respect of those portions of the contract which are independently enforceable against the competent parties — that is, against the guardian personally if the contract binds him, or against any adults who were co-parties to the transaction. The minor's share remains protected, as equity will not allow the courts to be used as instruments to circumvent the very incompetency that the law has created for the minor's benefit