With reference to provisions of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 define the following terms: (i) Quasi- contracts and its salient features (ii)…

(a) (i) Quasi- Contracts: A quasi -contract is not an actual contract, but it resembles a contract. It is created by law under certain circumstances. The law creates and enforces legal rights and obligations when no real contract exists. Such obligations are known as quasi -contracts. In other words, it is a contract in which there is no intention on part of either party to make a contract but law imposes a contract upon the parties. Salient features of quasi contracts: (a) In the first place, such a right is always a right to money and generally, though not always, to a liquidated sum of money. (b) Secondly, it does not arise from any agreement of the parties concerned, but is imposed by the law; and (c) Thirdly, it is a right which is available not against all the world, but against a particular person or persons only, so that in this respect it resembles a contractual right. (ii) Responsibility of finder of goods: As per section 71 of the Indian Contract Act,1872, ‘A person who finds goods belonging to another and takes them into his custody is subject to same responsibility as if he were a bailee’. Thus, a finder of lost goods has: (i) to take proper care of the property as man of ordinary prudence would take (ii) no right to appropriate the goods and (iii) to restore the goods if the owner is found.