Judicial Understanding of Gratuitous Bailment

The paper focuses on the understanding of involuntary bailment. An important element for a contract to be enforceable is consideration. The absence of consideration in gratuitous bailment and thus its development in its understanding is highlighted in the paper. It tries to point the judicial interpretation of the legal fiction that exists in the contract law where even without consideration gratuitous bailment is considered as a contract. Despite the fact, that India has a codified law and the statutes do not mention the involuntary baile, the Indian courts have not hesitated to protect the rights of involuntary bailee. It has gone beyond the conceptual understanding and accommodated the pragmatic loopholes. The paper focuses on three common law countries, England, Australia and India and traces the trajectory of this legal fiction.