11/1/1999 THE INDIAN LEGAL SYSTEM
India has inherited from Britain a very strong and efficient legal system. The history of the present day Indo-British legal system goes back to the charters granted in 1600 and 1609 by Elizabeth I and James I of England to the East India Company under which the Company was authorized "... to make, ordain and constitute such and so many reasonable laws, constitutions, orders and ordinances as to them ... shall seem necessary ... so always that the said laws, orders, ordinances, imprisonments, fines and amercements be reasonable and not contrary or repugnant to the laws, statutes, customs of this Our realm". The Mogul rulers of India permitted the Company to establish trading outposts or factories in various places in India. By a treaty between England and the Moguls signed in 1618, the Company was given the privilege of adjudicating the disputes between the English employees of the Company and other Englishmen dwelling in the Company's first factory, which was located in Surat. In due course, the Company extended its commercial, and subsequently its political interests in India, to such an extent that it assumed, for all practical purposes, the powers of a sovereign ruler over the territories under its control. After the crushing of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the British Parliament, by the Government of India Act, 1858, at one legislative stroke, took over from the Company, and transferred to the Crown, the sovereignty over large tracts of the territory of India.
In 1947, the process was reversed. The British Parliament passed the historic Indian Independence Act, 1947 by which India and Pakistan were declared to be separate and independent Dominions.
Direct or indirect British rule in India for nearly three hundred years has made a durable impact on many Indian institutions. When the British left India in 1947, they left behind a well organized economic and administrative infrastructure, a widespread network of roads and railways, a well trained bureaucracy, universities and educational institutions, the English language, which continues to be used for official and business purposes, and the legal system.
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