• SPECIFIC OFFERS

A specific offer is one that is made to a specific person or to specific class of people and has conditions that must be met in order for the offer to be accepted. For instance, P may offer to purchase a horse from R for Rs. 10,000. This is a particular offer that has been made to a specific individual R, and no one other than R can accept it.

In the case of Boulton V. Jones, 157 ER 232 (1857), The defendant used to do business with Brockle Hurst, and he gave Hurst an order for the purchase of some products, but Hurst had already sold his company to Boulton by the time the offer reached him. Boulton received the order and sent the goods to Jones without telling him of the company’s ownership switch. When Jones heard of the business shift, he declined to pay Boulton for the products because he said he intended to enter into a contract with Hurst rather than Boulton. As a result, it was decided that Jones would not be liable to pay Boulton because he made a clear offer to Hurst.

• GENERAL OFFERS

General offers are the offers which are made to the world at large. These offers are not to a particular person or specific class of people. The whole world has the right to accept this kind of offers/proposals. But the contract is made only with a particular person who comes forward and performs the conditions of the proposal.

In the case of Carlill V. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co., 1 Q.B. 256(1893),The defendants were in the business of making some balls (a medicinal preparation against influenza) and had put an advertisement in the newspaper promising a reward of 100 Euro to anybody who caught influenza after using their balls. The defendant made a goodwill deposit of 1000 Euros in a bank. Mrs. Carlill, the plaintiff, got influenza after using the ball in the way it was supposed to be used, and she sued the defendants for damages. Since it was a general offer, the defendants were held liable. The offer was open to all and as soon as Mrs. Carlill performed the conditions of the proposal and contracted influenza, it was accepted and a contract was formed between the parties.

Another case of general offer would be Harbhajan Lal V. Harcharan Lal,  AIR 539(1925) case, the defendant’s son had run away from home, and the defendant issued a notice promising a reward of Rs. 500 to anyone who could trace him. The plaintiff found the defendant’s missing son at a railway station and informed him. The plaintiff had claimed the reward because the defendant’s notice was a general offer which everyone can accept.

• COUNTER OFEERS

A counter offer is a kind of offer in which the offeree does not accept the original offer but is able to accept the offer after making certain modifications to the original offer in the form of additions or deletions,. In this event, the original offer is refused and cannot be revived at a later date. The offeree becomes the new offeror, and the offeror becomes the new offeree in those cases. Only the party that made the initial offer can accept or refuse a counteroffer, and only if that party accepts the counteroffer, a contract is made.

In the case of Hyde V. Wrench, 49 ER 132(1840), the Plaintiff rejected the defendant’s offer to sell his farm to the for £1,200. The defendant then agreed to make a second offer to sell the farm to him for £1,000, stating that this would be his final offer on the land. Mr. Hyde responded with a letter offering £950 for the farm, which Mr. Wrench turned down. Following that, Mr. Hyde agreed to purchase the farm for £1,000, which was the original offer. Mr. Wrench, on the other hand, declined to sell his farm because, after Mr. Hyde rejected the offer, he made a counter offer that was not approved by the defendant, rendering the previous offer invalid.

• CROSS OFFERS

When two parties make the same offer to each other at the same time, this is referred to as a cross offer. Since such an offer is solely dependent on chance, it doesn’t generally happen in the real world. There would be no contract in this case because it is impossible to interpret that one party’s offer is accepted by the other.

For example: suppose S makes an offer to T to buy his horse for Rs. 8000 and T also makes the exact same offer of selling his horse to S at the same time. This is considered as cross offer and it will not be considered acceptable for either of them.

Aishwarya Says:

I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.

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