Court caseAIR 1954 SC 44

The company agreed to sell a plot in a development scheme, undertaking to construct roads and drains, with no time fixed for completion. During the war the land was requisitioned by the military. The buyer's nominee sued for a declaration that the contract subsisted; the company pleaded frustration.

The Supreme Court held that 'impossible' in section 56 is not confined to physical impossibility: a contract is frustrated when an untoward event upsets the very foundation on which the parties rested their bargain. Section 56 lays down a positive rule and English theories of implied term are not needed. But here the requisition was temporary, no time was fixed, and the parties in wartime must have contemplated such delays; the contract was not frustrated.