Legal Safeguards of ‘Government Contracts’ In India : A Critique

Contracts as we all know is a promise enforceable by law and once a valid contract has been entered into the parties are obliged to fulfill its terms and condition. However in a contract where government is a party a sort of special protection is accorded to the government as it is believed that such a 'government contract' involves public interest and public finance. Part I of this article would deal with what is a government contract and structurally how different it is from other contracts. Part II would build on the platform provided by Part I and would discuss as to what specific protection is accorded to the government in a government contract, this part would also review the judicial response to the claim of 'executive necessity' by the government to avoid contractual obligation. This article has been written with Indian legal system as background and in Part III there would be a comparative analysis with other jurisdictional approaches