PERFORMANCE OF RECIPROCAL PROMISE(SECTION 51)

PERFORMANCE OF RECIPROCAL PROMISE
(i) Promisor not bound to perform, unless reciprocal promise ready and willing to perform - Section 51

When a contract consists of reciprocal promises to be simultaneously performed, no promisor need to perform his promise unless the promisee is ready and willing to perform his reciprocal promise.

Example: A and B contract that A shall deliver the goods to B to be paid for by B on delivery. A need not deliver the goods, unless B is ready and willing to pay for the goods on delivery. 

Analysis of Section 51

Simultaneous performance of reciprocal promises: Reciprocal promises may have to be performed simultaneously, or one after the other. Where A promises to deliver rice and B promises to pay the price on delivery, both the promises are to be performed simultaneously, and both A and B must be ready and willing to perform their respective promises. Such promises constitute concurrent conditions and the performance of one of the promises is conditional on the performance of the other. If one of the promises is not performed the other too need not be performed. If A, in the above-mentioned example, is unwilling to deliver the rice on payment, A will be guilty of breach of promise and the breach would relieve B of the obligation to perform his promise and would enable B to treat the contract as at an end.