A Brief History Of Judiciary In India

Indian judiciary has evolved in various phases. There always has been a system for providing justice to people in the society. In the ancient times this duty was discharged by the King himself or either any competent persons appointed by the king for this specific purpose. The judicial persons were provided with adequate authority and power to punish the offender. The punishment was upon the discretion of the judge and there was no specific rules and mostly the punishment had no connection with the offense of the person. the punishments included lashing, cutting the limb, hanging till death and banishment from the society.

After that came the Mughals with them came medieval period in Judiciary of India. The shadow of religion on judicial system was always present but it was in this phase that the Judiciary clearly became an element under religious control. It was this time that judiciary came under the control of  religious and spiritual leaders. The King of this era did not took much interest in judicial administration and it was completely left out to Kazi, Muftis and Maulvis. They used to apply PERSONAL LAWS. Whole criminal administration of justice was based on Muslim personal laws whereas the civil administration was according to the religion of a person. Ex. is a person is a Hindu and there is dispute regarding succession then Hindu personal laws will be applied and if the person is Muslim the Mohammedan law was applied. The judicial system in this phase was pathetic and suffered from many problems like corruption, vagueness of the laws and their wrong interpretation. TH punsihment awarded were cruel and barbaric in nature. the whole administration of justice was left on the will of the religious teachers and leaders.

Then in 1600 Britishers came to India and a new era started which is marked with the modernization and systematization of Indian judiciary for Britisher are the only one to be credited for it. When Britishers landed is Surat and established their factory there they took permission from Jahangir the then mughal emperor to judge their own people by their own rules. The CHARTER OF 1600 invested the power in the company to make laws for its own people to keep them discipline. The power invested was limited and only extended to servants of the company. The real power came in the hand of the company came in with the passing of the CHARTER OF 1661. The charter said that the now campany can make rules and laws for persons living in the company area. This meant now the company was no mere trading concern but a territorial power.

After that when a Hindu raja gave Britishers the authority to administer a small village named 'Madraspatnam' they first did not evinced much interest in it but later when Madras became first presidency town they took upon the task of administering justice in Madras. They established many courts like Admiralty court and Mayors court. these courts used to apply English law to everyone. Another Admiralty court was established in Bombay and later Under the CHARTER OF 1726 a Mayor's cort was established in all the 3 presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. One of the biggest problem at that time was that the justice was administered by non professional judges who didn't had even elementary knowledge of law

Lord Wareen Hastings, first Governor General of India

But the major change or rather revolutionary change was brought under the CHARTER OF 1773 when Supreme Court was established at Calcutta. For the first time executive was put under the control of Judiciary. For the first time RULE OF LAW was applied in India and it was a premature step and gave result to many conflicts which is visible in Cossijurah case and Patna case. There was SC to administer justice in presidency town of Calcutta but in the nearby area known as Mofussil area a separate system ADAALAT SYSTEM was working which was devised by Warren  Hastings in his JUDICIAL PLAN OF 1772  in which he made certain improvements in 1774 and 1780. His work was carried on by Lord Cornwallis and later Lord William Bentinck. Lord Bentinck devised District diwani and seasons court which are still present in our judiciary.                                                                       

finally a jolt was given to 2 separate systems and the unification was done by removing both Supreme court and Adalats in mofussil area and instead High courts were established under the HIGH COURT ACT 1861.