The Indian legal system: an enquiry

Abstract

India is one of the most ethnically, religiously and socio-economically diverse countries in the world, and this diversity is protected under Articles 25–31 of the Indian Constitution, which provides constitutional safeguards for religious, cultural and educational rights. On the other hand, India was also under British rule for two hundred years, during which time various Western-style institutions and legal systems and a formal bureaucracy were developed. With respect to these institutions, little has changed since independence. This gives rise to competing legal norms in India, as reflected in its constitution, which is based, first, on democratic aspirations inspired by the English and Welsh common law and French constitutional ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, and, second, on the need to safeguard the interests of various sectors of the community and emerging religious, ethno-regional and tribal sentiments. The book The Indian Legal System: An Enquiry by Mahendra Pal Singh and Niraj Kumar seeks to address this delicate balance between the various normative forces present in India’s postindependence legal system. It asks whether India has been successful in striking this balance between the various Western and Eastern legal traditions subsumed within it, and if permitting the continuance of certain traditional legal systems is permissible under international human rights law and what the scope and direction for the future development of the legal system might be.