Specific Relief or Equitable Relief is a remedy by which a party is compelled to perform his contractual obligations in positive way or negative way.Equity has developed a number of special, equitable remedies that can be used when damages are not adequate.
There are two categories of remedies:
Legal Remedy :
A legal Remedy is granted by courts of law in the form of damages.
Equitable Remedy :
Remedy granted by court of equity and Equitable remedies are not in form of damages.
Any person whose rights have been violated can go to court of law for a relief in order to seek a remedy.In this case the court of law will compel the defendant to give compensation to the person against those items which have been wrongfully obtained by him.
Case Law PLD 1971 Lah 199:
The jurisdiction vested in the court for the grant of decree for specific performance is discretionary and the court is not bound to grant such relief even it is lawful to do.
Example :
If a person agrees to sell a house to another person and the person pays some amount to the owner under the agreement made up but the owner of the house does not sale the house later.In this case aggrieved person can sue for the damages and return the amount paid or he also can ask the court to compel the owner to sale his house now.In this situation owner will have to sale the house as he agreed forgiving specific Relief to aggrieved person.