Difference Between unlawful and illegal agreements

An unlawful agreement is one that, like a void agreement and is not enforceable by law. It is destitute (lacking) of legal effects altogether. If affects only the immediate parties and has no further consequences. An illegal agreement, on the other hand, is not only void between the immediate parties but has this further effect that the collateral transactions to it also become tainted (infect) with illegality. Thus, ‘every illegal agreement is unlawful, but every unlawful agreement is not necessarily illegal’. It is sometimes difficult to decide as to whether an act is illegal (or) unlawful because, as many of the illegal and the unlawful acts lie on the borderline. It may, however, be observed that illegal acts are those which are opposed to public morals and unlawful acts are those which are less rigorous in effect and involve a ‘non-criminal breach of law’. These acts do not affect public morals (nor) do they result in the commission of a crime