Legal Obligation

1. In ordinary language, obligation means a duty or responsibility. In law, it means a legal duty enforceable by law, the breach of which has legal consequences. Every obligation involves two persons, the obligor, who is bound, and the obligee, in whose favour it exists.
2. The Roman idea: Obligation is a vinculum juris, a bond of law. The word comes from the Latin obligatio*, which means to bind. A person under an obligation is tied to another by a legal chain that only performance can loosen.

Obligation is therefore legal, and not merely moral or social.

1. In jurisprudence, obligation means a legal bond that the law recognises and enforces. Not every duty is an obligation. Only legally enforceable duties are.
2. Obligation is closely connected with right. A right without a matching obligation is meaningless. The obligation is the passive side of the right, and the right is the active side of the obligation. If A has a right to recover money from B, B has a legal obligation to pay it. It exists only because the law recognises A's right.

1. Every obligation is a duty, but not every duty is an obligation. A duty is a wider term. It may be moral, social, religious or legal. An obligation is a legal duty that the law enforces and that is matched by a right in another person.
2. A moral or social duty becomes an obligation only when a legal sanction backs it. A moral duty to help a poor person cannot be enforced. A legal duty to repay a loan can be enforced through the courts.
3. Balfour v. Balfour (1919) shows where the line falls.** A husband promised to pay his wife thirty pounds a month while he worked abroad. When the marriage failed, she sued for the money. The Court of Appeal held that the promise was not enforceable. The parties did not intend to create legal relations, and a promise of that kind between husband and wife was a domestic, social arrangement.

Quasi-contract rests on the idea that no one should be enriched unjustly at another's cost. In Moses v. Macferlan (1760), Lord Mansfield held that a person who has received money that he ought in fairness to return can be made to pay it back. In State of West Bengal v. B.K. Mondal & Sons (1962), a contractor built structures for the State at its request, but there was no valid formal contract. The Supreme Court held that he could claim compensation under Section 70, because the State had accepted and enjoyed the work.

1. By source: Contractual, tortious and quasi-contractual obligations. Contractual obligations come from the consent of the parties. Tortious obligations come from breach of a duty that the law imposes. Quasi-contractual obligations are imposed by law, whatever the parties' consent.
2. By the number of debtors: Joint, several and solidary obligations.

1. By the person bound: In rem and in personam. An obligation in rem is owed to the whole world, such as the duty not to defame a person. An obligation in personam is owed to a specific person, such as a duty under a contract.

1. The most important consequence is enforceability. When an obligation is breached, the law gives remedies. These are damages or compensation, specific performance and an injunction. A legal sanction is what separates obligation from moral and social duty.
2. Damages are limited by remoteness. In Hadley v. Baxendale (1854), a mill's crankshaft broke, and the mill owners sent it by a carrier to be copied. The carrier delayed delivery, and the mill stayed idle. The court held that the carrier was not liable for the lost profits, because he had not been told that the mill would stop without the shaft. The rule is that damages cover losses that arise naturally from the breach, or that both parties could reasonably have foreseen. Section 73 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 states the same rule.
3. Specific performance orders the person to perform. Under the Specific Relief Act, 1963, a court can order a seller to hand over the property that he agreed to sell. Since the Specific Relief (Amendment) Act, 2018, specific performance is the general rule, and the court can refuse it only in the cases that the Act lists.

Obligation is the backbone of legal relationships. It is the legal bond that makes rights enforceable in practice. Whether it comes from contracts, torts, statutes or quasi-contracts, it helps keep justice and social order. Jurisprudence treats obligation as a legally enforceable relationship that is essential for the law to work, and not merely as a duty.