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17. 'Fraud' defined.--'Fraud' means and includes any of the following acts committed by a party to a contract, or with his connivance, or by his agent, enter into the contract:-

with intent to deceive another party thereto or his agent, or to induce him to (1) the suggestion, as a fact, of that which is not true, by one who does not believe it to be true;

2) the active concealment of a fact by one having knowledge or belief of the fact;

From the above, it is clear that when a party or their agent, with intent to deceive another party or induce them into a contract, including suggesting untrue facts, actively concealing facts, promising performance without intent to fulfill, or any other deceptive act or omission declared fraudulent by law. It clarifies that mere silence isn't fraud unless there's a duty to speak or silence amounts to speech.

38. In Merriam's Webster Dictionary, the fraud has been defined as under:-

39. In the case of S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu Vs. Jagannath 1 , the Hon'ble Supreme Court vividly defined fraud as an act of deliberate deception with the desire of securing something by taking unfair advantage of another and held as below:

"...Fraud avoids all judicial acts, ecclesiastical or temporal" observed Chief Justice Edward Coke of England about three centuries ago. It is the settled proposition of law that a judgment or decree obtained by playing fraud on the court is a nullity and nonest in the eyes of law. Such a judgment/decree -- by the first court or by the highest court -- has to be treated as a nullity by every court, whether superior or inferior. It can be challenged in any court even in collateral proceedings."