Minor's agreements

1. Section 11 and the age of majority

Section 10 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 requires that an agreement be made by parties competent to contract. Section 11 provides that every person is competent to contract who is of the age of majority according to the law to which he is subject, who is of sound mind, and who is not disqualified from contracting by any law to which he is subject.

The age of majority is fixed by section 3 of the Indian Majority Act, 1875: a person attains majority on completing eighteen years, or twenty-one where a guardian of his person or property has been appointed by a court (or his property is under a Court of Wards). Personal law does not alter this for contracts.

2. Mohori Bibee v. Dharmodas Ghose (1903): void ab initio

Dharmodas Ghose, a minor, mortgaged his house to a moneylender, Brahmo Dutt, to secure a loan of Rs 20,000, of which only about Rs 8,000 was actually advanced. The moneylender's attorney knew that Dharmodas was a minor. Dharmodas, through his mother as next friend, sued for a declaration that the mortgage was void. The moneylender (who had died; his widow Mohori Bibee continued the appeal) asked that, if the mortgage were set aside, the money advanced be repaid.

The Privy Council held:

• Sections 10 and 11 read together make a minor's agreement void, not voidable. The Act requires competence as a condition of a contract; an incompetent person cannot make one at all.
• Sections 64 and 65, which require restoration of benefits when a voidable contract is rescinded or an agreement is discovered to be void, did not apply, because they assume a person competent to contract. There never was a contract.
• The plea of estoppel failed, because the lender's agent knew the truth.
• Refund under section 41 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877 was discretionary, and on these facts the court refused it.

3. Consequences of a void agreement

• No enforcement against the minor. He cannot be sued on the promise, and no personal decree for money can be passed against him.
• No ratification. A minor cannot ratify the agreement on attaining majority, because there is nothing to ratify. If he wants to be bound, he must make a fresh promise supported by fresh consideration; past consideration given during minority will not support it.
• No estoppel against a minor. Even if the minor lied about his age, he is not estopped from pleading minority. Estoppel (section 115 of the Evidence Act, now section 121 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023) is a rule of evidence and cannot create a contract that the Contract Act forbids.
• No specific performance for or against the minor of such an agreement, because there is no contract to perform.

4. Restitution: what the minor must give back

Section 65 cannot be used, because Mohori Bibee held it inapplicable. The equitable route is the Specific Relief Act, 1963. Section 33(2)(b) provides that where a defendant successfully resists a suit on the ground that the agreement is void because he was not competent to contract under section 11, the court may require him to restore the benefit he received from the other party, to the extent to which he or his estate has benefited. Section 33 was left in place by the 2018 amendment of the Act.

This settled a conflict between High Courts. The Lahore High Court (Full Bench, Khan Gul v. Lakha Singh, 1928) had allowed restitution even where the minor was defendant; the Allahabad High Court (Full Bench, Ajudhia Prasad v. Chandan Lal, 1937) had refused it. Section 33 now permits it in both situations, but only up to the benefit that remains traceable. The English rule is the same in spirit: “restitution stops where repayment begins” (Leslie v. Sheill, 1914). A minor who received goods may be made to return them; a minor who spent borrowed money cannot be made to repay it as a debt.

5. Necessaries: section 68

If a person incapable of entering into a contract, or anyone whom he is legally bound to support, is supplied by another with necessaries suited to his condition in life, the supplier is entitled to be reimbursed from the property of the incapable person. Points to make:

• The liability is of the minor's estate, not personal. If he has no property, the supplier recovers nothing.
• The claim is quasi-contractual (Chapter V), not on a contract.
• “Necessaries” depends on status and actual need. Goods that the minor already has in sufficient supply are not necessaries: in Nash v. Inman (1908) a tailor who sold eleven fancy waistcoats to an undergraduate already well supplied by his father failed.
• Food, clothing, lodging, education, medical care and the cost of defending a suit about the minor's property have been treated as necessaries.

6. The minor in other roles

• Minor as agent. Section 184: as between principal and third persons, any person may become an agent, but a minor agent is not responsible to his principal. The principal is bound by the minor's acts; the minor is not liable to the principal.
• Minor as promisee or beneficiary. Nothing prevents a minor from receiving a benefit. A transfer to a minor, or a promise made to him for which he has given consideration, can be enforced by him (the Madras High Court, Full Bench, upheld a mortgage in favour of a minor in Raghava Chariar v. Srinivasa, 1917). The minor can sue; he cannot be sued.
• Minor partner. Section 30 of the Partnership Act, 1932: a minor cannot be a partner, but may be admitted to the benefits of a partnership with the consent of all the partners. His share is liable for the acts of the firm; he is not personally liable. Within six months of attaining majority (or of learning of his admission, if later) he must give public notice whether he elects to become a partner; if he gives no notice he becomes a partner by default and is personally liable from the date of admission.
• Negotiable instruments. Section 26 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881: a minor may draw, endorse or negotiate an instrument so as to bind all parties except himself.

7. Guarantee for a minor's debt (pointer)

The stock Contract II problem (A lends to minor B on C's guarantee; B pleads minority) turns on section 128 (surety's liability is co-extensive with the principal debtor's) and on whether the surety can be treated as having undertaken a primary obligation. It is worked out in the Contract II note on guarantee. For Contract I, state only that the loan cannot be recovered from B personally, that section 68 does not help because a loan of money as such is not a supply of necessaries, and that A's remedy lies against C.

How this is examined

“Explain the effects of a minor's agreement” was set in January 2026 and recurs almost every year. Structure: section 11 and the Majority Act; Mohori Bibee with facts; then the consequences as headings (no enforcement, no ratification, no estoppel, restitution under section 33 SRA, necessaries under section 68); then minor as agent, beneficiary and partner. A short note on section 68 or on Mohori Bibee alone is common. The minor's-loan-with-surety problem appears in Contract II but is often answered better with the material above.