UG-CLAT entrance exam Question Bank Solutions for Legal Reasoning

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: A second suit will not be heard on the same facts between the same parties.

Nakshatra files a suit against Chandra for getting possession of a house on the ground that the property passed on to her through the will executed by Surya before his death. The suit gets dismissed as Nakshatra fails to produce the will. Nakshatra files another suit against Chandra to get the same house from the latter, on the ground that she was entitled to the house as being the nearest heir of Surya.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: A second suit will not be heard on the same facts between the same parties.

Mr. Sampath went to a party alone in his wife Sunanda's car. He usually used his wife's car after office hours and his wife never objected to it. At the party, he got drunk. instead of taking the risk of driving the car, he requested his friend Mr. Vivek to drive him back home in Sunandas car, Mr. Vivek was quite sober since he had moderately consumed alcohol. On the way, Vivek knocked down a boy and injured his leg. Subsequently, on behalf of the boy, a claim for compensation was brought against Mrs.Sunanda since the car belonged to her and it was registered in her name. The insurance company refuses to pay compensation because the police report says that the person driving the car at the time of the accident had consumed alcohol.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: When the parties to an agreement agree on the same thing in the same sense, there arises legally binding obligations between them.

Facts: Zaverilals antique shop was a well-known shop in the locality. Taradevi, a socialite of the locality, went to the shop and she was attracted by an earthen jar on display. Zaverilal explained to her that the jar belonged to the Hoysaia period; and despite its earthern composition, it was very strong and almost unbreakable. Taradevi replied to him that she was so captivated by the jar that it was immaterial to her as to which period, it belonged. She bought the jar and came home. She placed the jar in a prominent place in her drawing-room. One of her friends, an art critique, who happened to visit her, told her that the jar was not at all an Antique, but Taradevi did not bother about it. One day, it accidentally fell down and broke into pieces. Taradevi took up the matter with Zaverilal that his both statements were wrong and therefore, he should pay damages to her

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Damages are payable for breach of contract and the purpose of damages is to compensate him for the loss suffered and not to improve his position more than what it would have been if the contract had been duly performed.
Facts: A wanted to buy a house and he contracted with a surveyor S to inspect a particular house and value it for him. S surveyed the house and valued it for Rs. 10 lakhs. S, however, failed to notice the defective plumbing system in the house, and had he taken note of it, the house would have been worth only Rs. 8 lakhs. A followed S's advice and bought the house for Rs. 8 lakhs and thereafter spent Rs. 4 lakhs for repairing the plumbing system. He filed a suit against S claiming Rs. 4 lakhs as damages

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Law does not take notice of trifles.

Facts: A proposes to his neighbour B that they both should go together for a morning walk. B agrees to the proposal and it is decided that both of them would meet at a particular point at 6 AM from where they would set off for the morning walk. In spite of the agreement, B does not turn up. A waits for him at 6 AM every day for a continuous period of seven days. Thereafter he files a suit against B claiming damages for the agony and mental torture suffered by him. Decide.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by factual situations. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

A sent a letter to B stating that he was willing to sell to B, 10 bags of rice at ₹20/- each. B wrote a letter to A accepting the offer and posted it.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: When there is a breach of contract, the resulting damages will have to be paid by the party breaching the contract to the aggrieved party. However, the parties are free to agree as to damages payable in advance in case there is a breach of contract.

Facts: Mr. Ramesh entered into a contract with Mr. Ramakrishna for selling his green Alto Car for Rs. 3 lakhs. Mr. Ramakrishna was to pay Rs. 3 lakhs on or before 25th April 2005 and take possession of the car. The party failing to honour the contract has to pay Rs. 40,000/- as damages to the other party. Mr. Ramakrishna has not performed his part of the contract. Mr. Ramesh is claiming Rs. 40,000/-

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Contractual liability is completely irrelevant to the existence of liability in tort (civil wrong).

Facts: X purchased a bottle of ginger-beer from a retailer. As she consumed more than 3/4 of the contents of the bottle, she found a decomposed remains of a snail in the bottle. After seeing the remains of a snail, she fell sick on the thought of what she consumed. She sued the manufacturer of the beer for negligence, though there is no contractual duty on the part of the manufacturer.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: A contingent contract is a contract to do or not to do something, if some event, collateral to such contract, does or does not happen.

Facts: A agrees to pay B a sum of Rs. 1 lakh if B marries C within a period of six months. B marries C during the seventh month as the marriage hall was available only during that month. B claims Rs. 1 lakh from A.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: A contract without consideration is void. When at the desire of one party the other party does something, the consideration is said to flow from the latter to the former.

Facts: A's house was .on fire and a child was trapped inside the house. Everyone was shouting for help. A brave onlooker, hearing the shrieks of a child, went inside the house and brought him out. The father of the child promised to pay the rescuer Rs.10,000. Subsequently, he backtracked his promise. The rescuer sued the promise for the breach.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: A contract procured by coercion is bad under the Indian Contract Act. Coercion is defined as committing or threatening to commit any act forbidden by the Indian Penal Code. Attempt to commit suicide is an offence under the India Penal Code.

Facts: A wanted his wife B to part with some landed property given to her by her father. B resisted fearing that her husband would squander it away. A threatened her that if she does not sign the deed transferring the property to him (i.e., A), he would commit suicide. B signed the deed. Subsequently, she challenged the deed on the ground that the deed was bad under law.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Every person, who is of the age of majority, is competent to contract according to the law to which he is subject.

Facts: A minor mortgaged his house in favour of Thakur Das, a money lender, to secure a loan of ₹20000. A part of this, i.e. ₹10500 was actually advanced to him. While considering the proposed advance, the attorney who was acting for the money lender, received information that the plaintiff was still a minor. Subsequently the minor commenced an action stating that he was underage when he executed the mortgage and the same should, therefore, be cancelled. He prayed for setting aside the mortgage. The mortgagee money lender prayed for the refund of ₹10500 from the minor.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Proposal (communication) + Acceptance (communication) + Consideration = Contract. The communication of a proposal is complete when it comes to the knowledge of the person to whom it is made.

Facts: X’s nephew absconded from home. He sent his servant in search of the boy. After the servant had left, X by handbills offered to pay ₹501 to anybody finding his nephew. The servant came to know of this offer only after he had already traced the missing child. He, therefore, brought an action to recover the reward.

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts and select the most appropriate answer.

Principle: Mere silence as to the facts likely to affect the willingness of a person to enter into a contract is not fraud unless the circumstances of the case are such that, on close examination, it is found to be the duty of the person keeping silent to speak, or unless his silence is, in itself, equivalent to speech.

Facts: X sells by auction to Y, a horse that X knows to be of unsound state of mind. X says nothing to Y about the horse’s unsound state of mind. Give the correct answer-

The following question consists of two statements, one labeled as ‘Assertion’ (A) and other as  ‘Reason’ (R). You are to examine these two statements carefully and select the correct answer.

Assertion (A): A void contract is not necessarily illegal

Reason (R): Every illegal contract is void.

X, a married woman, agreed to live in adultery with B and also agreed to serve him as his housekeeper. In return, B agreed to pay X ₹500 per month for living in adultery and ₹500 per month for housekeeping. The agreement is

Ramu applied for the post of Director in an organization. The governing body of the organization passed a resolution appointing him to the post. After the meeting, one of the members of the governing body informed him privately of the resolution. Subsequently, the resolution was rescinded.  Ramu claims damages. Which one of the following is the correct legal proposition in the case? 

P, Q, and R made a joint promise to give S a sum of ₹3000. S recovered the whole amount from P. Q was declared insolvent and cannot give anything. Which statement out of the following is correct?

Given below is a statement of legal principle followed by a factual situation. Apply the principle to the facts given below and select the most appropriate answer.

Legal Principle: In case of a breach of contract, compensation can be awarded for the personal inconvenience suffered by a party by reason of the breach, which naturally arose in the usual course of things from such breach, or which the parties knew, when they made the contract to be likely to result from the breach of it.

Factual Situation: Sunita and Sushmita bought bus tickets for a journey from Adyar to Mandaveli. The bus was to go to St. Thomas Mount via Mandaveli. However, the driver mistakenly took the wrong direction and the two girls were dropped at a distance of 2Vi miles from Mandaveli on the highway. With no other transportation in sight nor a place to stay, the two had to walk 2V4 miles at midnight. Later they filed a case against the bus company and claimed 5,000 as damages for the inconvenience caused in having to walk and 6,500 for Sushmita having fallen ill by catching a cold during the night.

Decision:

The question consists of legal propositions/principles (hereinafter referred to as 'principle') and facts. These principles have to be applied to the given facts to arrive at the most reasonable conclusion. Such principles may or may not be true in the real sense, yet you have to conclusively assume them to be true. In other words, in answering the following question, you must not rely on any principles except the principle that is given herein below for the question. Further, you must not assume any facts other than those stated in the question. The objective of this section is to test your interest in the study of law, research aptitude, and problem-solving ability.

Principle: When an offer is accepted by a person to whom it is made, it becomes a promise. But this promise will become legally binding only when the acceptance of the offer is unconditional.

Facts: Ram makes an offer to sell his house to Shyam for ₹50 lacs. Shyam accepts this offer but wants to pay the price of the house in five quarterly installments. Ram does not agree with it. Thereafter Shyam agrees to pay the price of the house in the way as originally desired by Ram. But Ram does not reply to it. Can Shyam compel Ram to sell his house to him?