Contract Law

Chikkam Ammiraju v. Chikkam Seshamma

(1917) ILR 41 Mad 33

Facts

A family dispute arose concerning certain property and a deed of release.
A man threatened his wife and son that he would commit suicide unless they executed the document demanded by him.
The wife and son feared that he would carry out the threat and signed the deed.
The document was later challenged on the ground that their consent had been obtained through coercion.
The opposing side argued that a threat to commit suicide could not amount to coercion under Section 15 of the Indian Contract Act.
Their argument was that suicide itself could not be punished under the Indian Penal Code because a person who successfully committed suicide would no longer be alive to be punished.

Whether a threat to commit suicide is a threat to commit an act “forbidden by the Indian Penal Code” within Section 15.
Whether a deed executed because of such a threat is voidable for coercion.

Section 15 defines coercion as:
committing or threatening to commit an act forbidden by the Indian Penal Code; or
unlawfully detaining or threatening to detain property, with the intention of causing a person to enter into an agreement.
It is unnecessary that:
the threat be directed against the contracting party personally; or
the person making the threat be capable of being prosecuted after completing the threatened act.
The question is whether the threatened conduct is prohibited or forbidden by the criminal law and is used to obtain consent.

The threat was made specifically to compel the wife and son to execute the release deed.
Their signatures were therefore not the result of independent or voluntary judgment.
The Court considered the relationship between suicide and attempted suicide.
An attempt to commit suicide was punishable under the Penal Code as it then stood.
The fact that completed suicide could not practically be punished did not mean that the act was permitted by law.
The word “forbidden” was broader than “punishable.”
An act may remain prohibited even though punishment becomes impossible because the offender dies in carrying it out.
The threatened act was also capable of causing serious legal and emotional prejudice to the wife and son.
The Court rejected the idea that coercion must involve physical violence directed at the person signing the agreement.
Pressure upon a close family member through a threat of self-destruction could be equally effective in destroying free consent.
Since the threat was deliberately used to obtain execution of the document, the causal link required by Section 15 was established.
The majority therefore treated the consent as having been procured by coercion.

The Madras High Court held that a threat to commit suicide amounted to coercion under Section 15.
The deed obtained through that threat was voidable at the option of the persons whose consent had been coerced.
Use this case for: a threat of suicide, when used to obtain agreement, may constitute coercion because the threatened act is forbidden by criminal law.