law: Hire-Purchase Act, 1972
  2. Definitions. -
  
  In this Act, unless the context otherwise
  
  requires. -
  (a) "contract of guarantee" in
  
  relation to any hire-purchase agreement, means a contract whereby a person ( in
  
  this Act referred to as the surety) guarantees the performance of all or any of
  
  the hirer's obligations under the hire-purchase agreement.
  (b) "hire" means the sum payable
  
  periodically by the hirer under a hire-purchase agreement.
  (c) "hire-purchase agreement" means
  
  an agreement under which goods are let on hire and under which the hirer has an
  
  option to purchase them in accordance with the terms of the agreement and
  
  includes an agreement under which-
  (i) possession of
  
  goods is delivered by the owner thereof to a person on condition that such
  
  persons pays the agreed amount in periodical installments, and
  (ii) the property in
  
  the goods is to pass to such person on the payment of the last of such
  
  installments, and
  (iii) such person has
  
  a right to terminate the agreement at any time before the property so passes.
  (d) "hire-purchase price" means the
  
  total sum payable by the hirer under a hire-purchase agreement in order to
  
  complete the purchase of, or the acquisition of property in, the goods to which
  
  the agreement relates and includes any sum so payable by the hirer under
  
  hire-purchase agreement by way of a deposit other initial payment, or credited
  
  or to be credited to him under such agreement on account of any such deposit or
  
  payment, whether that sum is to be a or has been paid to the owner or to any
  
  other person or is to be or has been discharged by payment or money or by
  
  transfer or delivery of goods or by any other means but does not include any
  
  sum payable as a penalty or as compensation or damages for a breach of the
  
  agreement.
  (e) "hirer" means the person who
  
  obtains or has obtained possession of goods from an owner under a hire-purchase
  
  agreement, and includes a person to whom the hirer's rights or liabilities
  
  under the agreement have passed by assignment or by operation of law.
  (f) "owner" means the person who
  
  lets or has let, delivers or has delivered possession of goods, to a hirer
  
  under a hire-purchase agreement and includes a person to whom the owner's
  
  property in the goods or any of the owner's rights or liabilities under the
  
  agreement has passed by assignment or by operation of law.
  (g) each of the words and expressions used and
  
  not defined in this Act but defined in the Indian Contract Act, 1872 ( 9 of 1872)
  
  or the Sale of Goods Act, 1930 (3 of 1930) shall have the meaning assigned to
  
  it in that Act. 
  Comment: The
  
  nature and legal effect of hire-purchase agreements is not the same in all
  
  cases and may be different in different circumstances. The Court is duty bound
  
  in each case to determine the correct legal relationship between the parties by
  
  going through the document as a whole and reaching the real intention of the
  
  parties, untrammeled by the choice of phraseology in the document.
  (1973)1 Mys LJ 231