Indian Legal History

Description

The addition of Legal History as a subject of study in Indian Universities is of very recent origin. Till a decade back it found no place in curriculum syllabus of any law degree course. It is said: “There is a great deal of Law learning that is dry, dark, cold, revolting but it is an old feudal castle in perfect preservation, which the legal architect who aspires to the first honours of his profession will delight to explore, and learn all the uses to which its various parts used to be put; and he will better understand, enjoy and relish the progressing improvements of the science in modern times”. The author has always looked upon Legal History as law learning which helps us to understand, enjoy and relish the progressing improvements of law without the study itself being, on credit side, dry, dark, cold or revolting. The aim in presenting this Book has been two-fold. Firstly, books by the foreign writers are generally not read by the students of law at the Indian Universities, either because they are voluminous or because they are not comprehensive. Secondly, a student, who in addition to the immediate object of what he calls in his own parlance ‘getting through, is also working for an intellectual equipment which will give him a degree of reasonable confidence that he knows the roots wherefrom the contemporary system of law has taken its birth, and who, at the same time, has no mind or time to carry on the extensive or moderate research on the subject.’
The author had, therefore, not confined this book only to what the ‘keys-reading’ law student would accept, but he has, within the limitations of all my human failings, traced the growth and development of the system of law and its administration from the times since the East India Company ceased to be a purely trading concern and started meddling with the political affairs of the States in India. The author has tried to present the historical order of the growth as best as he could but for obvious reasons of the cross-currents of Indian history the picture could not be painted with the unity he would have liked to see in it.