The Dynamics of pre-legislative processes and the Dialectics of the Law Commissions Exercises[
INTRODUCTION
The Dynamics of pre-legislative processes and the Dialectics of the Law Commission's Exercises1
"Long years ago we made a tryst with the destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem or pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially... A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance" intoned Jawaharlal Nehru, as India awoke to freedom from the stupor of colonialism. Emergent social justice to the millions, equal law-in-action and access to justice for the haves and the have-nots burying 'five fathoms deep' the old feudal iniquities and sub-human lifestyles, and the dawn of a value revolution of dynamic humanism, realistic secularism and democratic-socialist positivism ---these immediate imperatives were to be attained, not by oligarchic fiat or dikhat, but by sensitized legislative mandates, breaking away from the anathematic past and transforming old institutions and processes of State into a new goal-oriented activism of laws. Towards Destination Swaraj through laws, was thus a summons to law-makers to undertake an Himalayan legislative adventure to translate the Preambular pledge of the Constitution into the realities of the corpus juris of Bharat. The journey was long but the direction was clear, legislated law being the means and social justice the end. The nascent grammar of Indian Law Reform desiderated a liberationist thrust; for, Third World countries needed a militant mood to break the old legal chains, not to bow before it with Bhakti.
The Law Commission and its functional relevance must be viewed in this iconoclastic context, the task being terribly difficult because 'old bottles and new wine' may be an experiment in the self-condemned process of traditional means stultifying radical ends. The Law Commission itself is, in the Indian social laboratory, an orthodox instrument of old-world jural acrobats expected to perform a revolutionary pre-legislative circus, sans a progressive vision, and suffering from a pathological inhibition about the egalitarian transformation hitherto condemned as dangerous. The members, often erudite souls, burdened by the 'old testament', without a glimpse of the crimson gospel, were credulously appointed the midwives of a New Order struggling to be born. Such a built-in between process and purpose was inevitable where the cadres of change were but liberal missiles with moderate targets. An uninhibited know-how and value-illumined structural design were the need if the hunger for justice of the masses was the justification and power behind radical reform. The Central Government never displayed such a grave concern for fundamental re-writing of the statute book and was moved by no ideological criteria in choosing members of the Commission who were, at best, luminous liberals in the law allergic to the socialist shake-up of lawyers' law. Moreover, the colonial intellectualism and feudal perspectivism of the establishment inhibited the 'learned' legal profession from dialectical legislative perceptions and explosively scientific advances and their massive impact on the march of the law. This critical gap between the obsolescent black letter law and the current cry for a modernized, creative legislative transformation of the social order hobbles the Law Commission and made a militant jurist like Prof. Baxi lash out:
"India today bristles with a sense of injustice. I think future historians will think of us as heroic in our endeavour to preserve, promote and protect justice. And the country will burn tomorrow and the day after when our callous insistence on such injustice meets with the desperate daring of the victims."2
What with the watershed of Imperial Law having been crossed and a consequential paradigm shift compulsive, the Parliament tried to keep ambivalent faith with the Founding Deed and created, by a dubious Resolution, the Central Law Commission as a British imitation.
The Law Commission of India was born on August 1955 even though the demand for it came at the stage of Constitution-making. The generic code of the Law Commission had no disturbing composition despite the recognition that British Indian jurisprudence was out of date and out of tune with people aspirations. The Central Government did not give any statutory autonomy for the law reform body and treated it as an appendage to the Ministry of Law. One could plainly see that there was no intention to jettison Macaulay or Stephen. Even Nehru conceived of the Commission as designed to make changes in the law in "bits and parts" and not in re-designing the "whole scheme of things". The resolution creating the Commission mentioned the need for "simple, speedy, cheap, effective and substantial justice". It was a Lawyers' Commission rather than a Law Revolution Commission. It was packed with safe men like retired justices of the highest court or High Courts, lucrative lawyers, learned jurists and some bureaucrats. Political considerations in appointments and in operations were in evidence vis-a-vis the Law Commission. Retired judges are never revolutionary stuff and "We, the People of India" never disturbed their mentations. Moreover, there was a hiatus between the past tense and the future tense in the law making process, because judges looked backwards for precedents, bureaucrats and lawyers looked across the Atlantic for Anglo-Americans examples, while the historic tryst with Indian destiny clearly required radical cadres of a different mould. Without casting any reflection on the outstanding abilities and learning of some of the Chairmen and members of the Commissions, one might safely venture to say that conventional reforms were all that was expected, and for this limited purpose, the eminent incumbents filled the bill. The nation pays the price of legislative slow-motion where the legal system continues its oppressive role because of the poor vision of Government responsible for the poor vision of Government responsible for the creation of the Law Commissions.
Research Methodology:
The completion of this paper on "Indian Law Commission" is wholly and solely based on books and materials. Basically books of Indian and Constitutional history like J.K. Mitthal3 and M.P. Jain4. Crucial analysis of the materials available and with the help of Law Commission site, this project aims to be a big time success.
Chapter-1
LAW COMMISSION AND CHARTER ACT OF 1833
Provision for a Law Commission:
The Charter Act of 1833 played a very important role in shaping and moulding the future course of law making in India. It was considered essential to prepare a code for Criminal law, evidence, contracts, limitation and also codes to regulate the civil and criminal procedure in the whole India by the same legislation. Regarding the intention of the framers of the Act of 1833, Kaye said, "A comprehensive consolidation and codification of Indian Laws was contemplated."
Sec. 53 empowered the Governor-General to establish a Law Commission of India. The main purpose entrusted to the Commission was to provide a common law and, therefore Sec. 53 provided, "Such laws as may be applicable to all classes of inhabitants, due regard being had to the tights, feelings and peculiar usages of the people, shall be enacted and all laws and customs having the force of law within the territories shall be ascertained and consolidated and as occasion may require amended. The Commission shall fully enquire into the jurisdiction, powers and rules of the existing courts of ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Sec. 53 empowered the Governor-General to establish a Law Commission of India. The main purpose entrusted to the Commission was to provide a common law and, therefore Sec. 53 provided, "Such laws as may be applicable to all classes of inhabitants, due regard being had to the tights, feelings and peculiar usages of the people, shall be enacted and all laws and customs having the force of law within the territories shall be ascertained and consolidated and as occasion may require amended. The Commission shall fully enquire into the jurisdiction, powers and rules of the existing courts of justice, police establishments and forms of the judicial procedure, due regard being had to the distinction of cases, religions, manners and opinions prevailing amongst different races and in different parts of the said territories." Due to these provisions of far reaching consequences Rankin remarked, "Sec. 53 of the Charter was the legislative mainspring of law reform in India".
In his speech of 10th July 1983, Lord Macaulay emphasised the necessity and the underlying principle of codification of Indian Law before the House of Commons thus: "As I believe that India stands more in need of a code than any other country in the world, I believe also that there is no country in which that great benefit can more easily be conferred. A code is almost the only blessing-perhaps it is the only blessing-which absolute Government are better fitted to confer on a nation than popular Government." "We do not mean that all the people of India should live under the same law: far from it we know how desirable that object is but we also know that it is unattainable. Our principle is simply this-Uniformity where you can have it-Diversity where you can have it-but in all cases certainty."5
The First Law Commission, 1834:
According to the provisions of the Sec. 53 of the Charter Act of 1833, the First Law Commission was appointed in India in 1834 with the fullest powers to inquire and report. It was composed of T.B. Macaulay6 (as Chairman) and four-members, namely, C.H. Cameroon, J.M. Macleod, G.W. Anderson and F. Millet. The last three members represented Madras, Bombay and Calcutta respectively.
Contribution of First Law Commission:
As the system of administration of criminal justice was most unsatisfactory; the local government directed the Commission to take its first step to tackle this branch of law. The reason for top priority to draft Penal Code was that the existing criminal law was full of uncertainties and confusion throughout the country. In the Presidencies, the English law of crimes was applied while the provinces of Bengal and Madras followed the Mohammedan law of crimes. The Province of Bombay followed the penal law under the Elphinstone Code of 1827. The members of the Commission prepared a draft Penal Code which they submitted to Lord Auckland, the Governor-General, on 2nd May, 1837. In forwarding the letter the Commission remarked, "The Penal Code cannot be clear and explicit while the substantive civil law and the law of procedure are dark and confused."7 Lord Macaulay referred to the Penal Code of India as "a sort of work which must wait long for justice as I well knew when I laboured at it". The draft was also called 'Macaulay Code', as it was drafted by Lord Macaulay. Stokes made the observation, "Besides repressing the crimes peculiar to India such as Thuggee, dedicating girls to a life of temple-harlotry, human sacrifices, burning of widows, gang robbery, sitting dharna etc." In the words of Fitz James Stephen, Lord Macaulay's great work was far too daring and original to be adopted at once, and it is not surprising that the period of gestation was prolonged. It did not become law till 1860.
After its first successful step, the Law Commission started to gain the velocity and it went on with its onerous task of codifying the laws for India. As a result it is still continuing to suggest the Government and help to come out with a good law.
Chapter-2
LAW COMMISSION AFTER THE INDEPENDENCE
Post-independent Problems:
After independence of India in 1947 and India becoming a Republic in 1950 under the new Constitution, the problem of law revision arose in new form. When India became independent, the old laws prevailing in the country were not abrogated. Art. 3728 was enacted to maintain the legal continuity and to avoid creation of a vacuum in the area of law and justice which would have arisen had the old law been repealed. But then the problem of making suitable adjustments therein began to be felt acutely.9 In India, several pieces of legislation have remained unrevised for long. These statutes have fallen out of date. For example, the India Evidence Act has been there for nearly a hundred years without any substantial amendments. It began to be felt that there was a great need to modernize the old law so as to bring it in conformity with the socio-economic needs of the contemporary society and the latest trends in jurisprudential thinking in India and abroad. A major problem in independent India has therefore been that of adapting the old colonial law to the needs and demands of the new independent era. The social goals of British in India were fundamentally different from the goals cherished by modern India as laid down in the Directive Principles. While the main concern of the British rulers was to maintain law and order in the country, in Independent India efforts are being made to create an egalitarian society, a society based on equality and socio-economic justice. This has made it inevitable that the laws be examined to see what changes they should undergo so that new social goals and objectives would not only be achieved but accelerated. The Directive Principles of State Policy (hereafter in referred to as DPSP), though not enforceable as such by the courts, are yet constitutional norms which are to be observed and implemented through legislation and administration.
Further, the Indian Constitution contains a Chapter on Fundamental Rights. Consequently, after 1950, cases started coming before the Courts challenging one legal provision or the other as unconstitutional because of its conflict with some Fundamental Rights.10
It was thus felt necessary to scrutinize the laws to see how far they were in conformity with the Fundamental Rights and the DPSP, and to do away with any dichotomy which might be revealed as a result of this scrutiny. There was also the question of examination of the machinery of justice so as to make justice cheap, avoid delays therein and make it accessible to the poor as well. The independent India was faced with the need of a through-going revision, amendment, consolidation and reconstruction of the system of law and justice inherited by it from the colonial days. It was felt that these tasks could be achieved effectively by a compact and expert body.
Formation of First Law Commission:
On Dec.2, 1947, Dr. Hari Singh Gaur moved a resolution in the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) recommending the establishment of a statutory law revision committee. The resolution was withdrawn on Dr. Ambedkar, the then Law Minister, giving an assurance that the Government would device some suitable machinery for revising laws. The matter was raised again in the Lok Sabha on June 27, 1952 and Law Minister C.C. Biswas gave an assurance that the Government recognized the task of law revision as being of vital importance. On July 26, 1954, the All-India Congress Committee resolved that "a Law Commission should be appointed as in England to revise the laws promulgated nearly a century back by the Law Commission of Macaulay and to advise on current legislation from time to time."11 Finally, on November 19, 1954, the Lok Sabha discussed a non-official resolution to the following effect, "this House resolves that a Law Commission be appointed to recommend revision and modernization of laws, criminal, civil and revenue, substantive, procedural or otherwise and in particular, the Civil and Criminal procedure Codes and the Indian Penal Code, to reduce the quantum of case-law and to resolve the conflicts in the decisions of the High Courts on many points with a view to realize that justice is simple, speedy, cheap, effective and substantial."12
The Government of India accepted the principle underlying the resolution regarding appointment of a Law Commission. On 5th August, 1955, the Law Minister C.C. Biswas announced in the Lok Sabha the decision of the Government to appoint a Law Commission and also the tasks of the Law Commission as follows: (a) to review the system of judicial administration in all its aspects and suggest ways and means for improving it and making it speedy and less expensive; (b) to examine the Central Acts of general application and importance, and recommend the line on which they should be amended, revised, consolidated or otherwise brought up to date. The Government of India appointed the First Law Commission of Independent India in September, 1955, with the then Attorney-General of India, Mr. M. C. Setalvad, as its Chairman. The reports submitted by First Law Commission have been attached as Annexure I.13
Since then sixteen more Law Commissions have been appointed, each with at three-year term and with different terms of reference. The list of the Chairman who presided over the Commissions and their respective years has been attached as Annexure II.14
How does the Commission function?
The Commission's regular staff consists of about a dozen research personnel of different ranks and varied experiences. A small group of secretarial staff looks after the administration side of the Commission's operations.
Basically the projects undertaken by the Commission are initiated in the Commission's meetings which take place frequently. Priorities are discussed, topics are identified and preparatory work is assigned to each member of the Commission. Depending upon the nature and scope of the topic, different methodologies for collection of data and research are adopted keeping the scope of the proposal for reform in mind.
Discussion at Commission meetings during this period helps not only in articulating the issues and focusing the research, but also evolving a consensus among members of the Commission. What emerges out of this preparatory work in the Commission is usually a working paper outlining the problem and suggesting matters deserving reform. The paper is then sent out for circulation in the public and concerned interest groups with a view to eliciting reactions and suggestions. Usually a carefully prepared questionnaire is also sent with the document.
The Law Commission has been anxious to ensure that the widest sections of people are consulted in formulating proposals for law reforms. In this process, partnerships are established with professional bodies and academic institutions. Seminars and workshops are organised in different parts of the country to elicit critical opinion on proposed strategies for reform. Once the data and informed views are assembled, the Commission's staff evaluates them and organises the information for appropriate introduction in the report which is written either by the Member-Secretary or one of the Members or the Chairman of the Commission. It is then subjected to close scrutiny by the full Commission in prolonged meetings. Once the Report and summary are finalised, the Commission may decide to prepare a draft amendment or a new bill which may be appended to its report. Thereafter, the final report is forwarded to the Government.
It is obvious that the success of the Commission's work in law reforms is dependent upon its capacity to assemble the widest possible inputs from the public and concerned interest groups. The Commission is constantly on the look out for strategies to accomplish this goal within the limited resources available to it. In this regard the media plays an important role which the Commission proposes to tap more frequently than before.
Chapter-3
PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS: FEW SUGGESTIONS
Art. 372 provided for the transitional continuance of 'old' laws expecting from the precedent-prone judiciary a juridical radicalism and new international thrust in the light of the constitutional gospel. Alas: hopes proved dupes and law turned enemy to justice save in forensic flash-in-the-pan rhetoric and remedial gimmicks which hardly jolted the socio-economic fabric. The court stood for the status quo and the Commission for moderate does of reform opium.
This back-drop serves as an apology for the entropy of the Indian legal order anchored in old values while lisping avant-garde diction. Indeed the law reforms suggested by the many incarnations of the Law Commission suffer from a genetic disability viz. the refusal to revolutionalize the law to fulfill our historic tryst with socialist destiny because the operational milieu and the tools and technology used belong to the British Indian genre. Crucifixion is certain for Jesus in the Imperial Justice System. Resurrection needs a new dynamic, a deeper awareness of destination and an impatient militancy and heterodoxy which is anathema for the 'robes', the bureaucrats and the jurist elite drawn from the dominant class. The New Left is yet tongue less; the broad masses, who are the vast consumers, are noisily lost; the progressive pretenders are skin deep in change-showmanship, not soul deep in fundamental mutations in the rule of law. The Law Commission, like the Judiciary, is thus the victim of static skills. Gerontic arts are a pathetic substitute for radicalized artistry. Small wonder, the Commission, like the court and the Executive-Legislative complex, is a distant neighbour of socialist switch-over. That is why the amendment to the Penal Code, the Procedure Codes, the Limitation Act, et al, stop with crossing the t's and dotting the i's, and keeping within conservative bounds. Where is the law that 'wipes every tear from every eye'? Where is poverty jurisprudence codified? Where is a Common Civil Code or Civil Rights law, which activates fundamental rights and Directive Principles? Where is legislative delivery of processual justice to the people? Why is the cruel Prison Acts, a hundred years old, not replaced by a correctional code, humanely modern? How come that the Lunacy Act, a lunatic among our laws, seeks to reincarnate as a medieval statute? In our legal system, why does the little man not matter and even our election law is polluted by mammon and communal permissiveness? Why are the deleterious adversary system and the 'appeal disease' on which the bar thrives not washed in legislative acid? And why no codified administrative law is in the offing? Poverty is still a crime, a discriminative disability before 'equal justice' trumpets. Distributive justice is just a joke absent legislative backing! Gender-justice is still not a code, but a clamour. An obsolete law of evidence, a lexical law of interpretations with weightage for vested interests and property laws, offering oasis for privileged classes and a graveyard for the lowliest and the lost - these and other basic vices of hostile legal heritage survive after death. The truth is that the Indian Law Commission has no vision or mission and is a weak camp follower of common, wealth models. Its real role is of catalyzing the social revolution through law, not playing the part of a moderate, liberal, reform agency. Its processes, personnel and perspectives are West-bound, poorly imitative and blissfully innocent of the challenges of dynamic change. This criticism goes to the root of the raison d'etre15 of the Central Law (Reform) Commission. The Chairman and members of the successive Commissions have been distinguished. May be, many of the recommendations do credit in a limited way. But where creative mutations and value-loaded originality are the felt necessity, conservative care is a bane and tepid changes a teasing illusion. Too long has the truth of this lie been hidden through the mask of Court and Commission.
Now let's have a look at another problem of the law reform vis-à-vis the Law Commission. Its research mode and techniques limited and almost simian in copying what is Anglo-American. Socialist countries are pariahs of the Indian reformer's law. The Commission Secretary is the mastermind, ordinarily a seasoned, senior Law secretariat member; the Chairman, ordinarily a scholarly superannuated Supreme Court Judge and the rest are kindly personages with many virtues and some who need rest after 'life's fitful fever'. When Justice Krishna Iyer was the member of the Law Commission, the outstanding jurist Dr. Gajendragadkar, was the Chairman. Oftentimes, the Secretary is the Commission and the Chairman its luminous façade. Sometimes, the others in the team have learning and experience which are essential components of good law-making. But the whole orientation and methodology need a second look, even a shake-up. Some secretaries like Srinivasamurthi and Bakshi have shown great aptitude for research and remarkably wife reading plus forward looking perspective but repressed by a gerontic system, and suffer from a professionally blinkered outlook. Some Chairman like Gajendragadkar and Mathew have large scholarship and wider legal perspectives. Others have been excellent and experienced but pedestrians. A few like Dr Tripathi are authoritative academics. But what is the operational orientation of the Commission and what the criterion for selection? What we need in not Westminster mintage art in Secretaries and Victorian vintage wisdom in members, if our aim is a secular, socialist republic of swadeshi gauge but a creative genius with a fertile blend of Indian legal heritage, people's commitment and realistic, socialistic sensitivity. Mere crimson cosmetics are not socialist; copycat transfer of English-speaking legislation is not modernist. There is really no original research in the Law Commission or in the Law Institute or in the high halls of justice. The blame is not on the Commission but on the country. The Commonwealth countries have Law Reform Commissions, so we too have one. From Setalvad to Mathew a great amount of good work, creditable and even worthwhile reform proposals have emanated; but our nation's legislative revolution is beyond their ken sane where English speaking communities have done something forward-looking. Then our Commission bravely adopts. The researchers of the Law Commission are good material but with poor socialist nationalist background and rise by inevitable seniority in the usual Secretariat spiral. So we should strongly plead for a change here to make the Law Commission an Indian institution willing to tackle Indian legislative pathology with a penchant for dynamic Indian opportunity.
The people factor has lost poignant relevance and Law Commissions have become official conventions with none taking note of them more than marginally, which is a pity. This syndrome is due to many causes and a functional audit will unravel the diagnosis and prognosis.
CONCLUSION
The Law Reforms Commission of India has 'miles to go' and 'promises to keep'. Modern technology, mafia clout and cultural distortions add to the problems of law reform. The failure of Law Commissions, notwithstanding some great Chairman and talented secretaries and a few powerful reports is not their fault. The crippled law reform bodies are victims of functional limitations, obsolete parameters and methodologies where modern technological research and wide democratic consultations are heresies. And the composition of this coterie is traditionally negative and safely gerontic. Not the stuff or the process for dynamic, daring, futuropathic legislative legislation revolution! The Commission's D.N.A. is conditioned to be conformist and it has not even statutory autonomy.
The indifference of the bureaucracy and the political echelons to the Law Commission and its products is depressing. The denial of operational independence derived form statutory status makes this strategic body a ceremonial device. The parliamentary unconcern for its reports as the finished product of high-minded jurists and social scientists deprives the office of job satisfaction.
The performance sheet of the commission is a weak stream that can never rise higher than the jejune source of authority. The work force under it has no flair for field work, no research training, no social action antecedents, no hope of a career except to wait for promotion in the Law Ministry.
The projects undertaken are either the choice of the Government of low priority items in the scale of socio economic transformation. The judges, if consulted, don't respond. The political parties are not consulted in any meaningful manner. The affected people are ignored except rarely. Social action groups and experts, legislators and academics and common people who suffer legal and illegal injustices are not invited to make proposals. No discussion papers, learned and pointed, are put out. These democratic failings are fatal. The Law Commission of India is far important than its counterparts in the West. We have creative genius here but imprisoned in a system and emasculated so much that Prof Baxi demands its contribution to the Exchequer by its abolition.16
He writes, "What should be done? Ideally, the LCI should become both a statutory and continuing agency. Ideally, its composition (both full time and part time) must have the best juristic talent and should have representation from social sciences. Ideally, it should have a multi-disciplinary approach, both at the level of the secretariat as well that of the Commission. Ideally, again, it must engage in a comprehensive, sociologically oriented, systematic programme of reform not just of the layers' law, but of legal institutions and processes. It ought to be a monitoring agency, a planning body, for the future of the Indian Legal System at a national level. It ought to have national status and prestige as an integrating agency for law reform in India, just as the Planning Commission.17
Also there is a vital need for a high-powered Law Commission with statutory authority, original jurisdiction, research assistance, functional dynamism and multi-disciplinary composition. The reports of the Commission must be accompanied by draft bills drawn up with the Law Ministry's participation and involvement of other concerned Ministries. Even the parliamentary parties must be consulted actively and substantially and their views authentically incorporated in the reports. The Soviet Legislative Commissioners do consult experts and others and their reports are almost the finalized form of the legislation. We in India must be able to streamline and rationalize the legislative process and make it less time-consuming. This can be achieved by comprehensive processing intelligently made and democratically drawn up by the pre-legislative institution called the Law (Reform) Commission. The great need is to come down to the common people, rouse their creative response and make them the vicarious law makers of India. The legislators of today are too busy to be informed, too illiterate to be experts, but their enlightened cooperation is a condition precedent to success. We need not imitate the limitations of the West.
We have great talent, immense scholarship, latent creativity, but still we lad behind in low-making suited to the Indian genius and needs of the masses. Hence it could be concluded by citing Australian Law Commission's issue:
"The West can teach the East how to get a living, but the East must eventually be asked to show the West how to live."18
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] List of Books:
) Dr. N.V. Paranjpe, Indian Legal and Constitutional History, 5th Ed., Central Law Agency. (2002)
2) Hansard, House of Commons Debates, Third Series, Vol. XIX.
3) M.P. Jain, Indian Constitutional Law, 5th Ed., Vol.-2, Wadhwa and Co. (2003)
4) M.P. Jain, Outlines of India Legal History, 5th Ed., Wadhwa and Co. (2004)
5) V.D. Kulshreshtra, Landmarks in Indian Legal and Constitutional History, B.M. Gandhi ed., 7th Ed., Eastern Book Co. (2003)
6) V.R. Krishna Iyer, Constitutional Miscellany, 2nd Ed., Eastern Book Co. (2003)
[2] Sites Visited:
) www.lawcommissionofindia.nic.in
2) www.westlaw.com
[3] List of cases:
State of Madras v. Menon, AIR 1954 SC 517.
[4] Journals and Articles:
) Upendra Baxi, The Illustrated Weekly of India, June 17, 1984.
2) Upendra Baxi, The Crisis of the Indian Legal System, (1982).
[5] Miscellaneous:
Law Commission, XIV Report, 1 (1958).
Annexure I
REPORTS SUBMITTED BY FIRST LAW COMMISSION
No. of the Report
Subject
Date of Presentation
.
Liability of the State in Tort.
1. 5. 1956
2.
Parliamentary Legislation relating to Sales Tax.
2. 7. 1956
3.
Limitation Act, 1908
21. 7. 56
4.
On the proposal that High Courts should sit in Benches at different places in a State
. 8. 56
5.
British Statutes Applicable to India.
1. 5. 57
6.
Registration Act, 1908
3. 7. 57
7.
Partnership Act, 1932
3. 7. 57
8.
Sale of Goods Act, 1930
. 3. 58
9.
Specific Relief Act, 1877
9. 7. 58
0
Law of Acquisition and Requisitioning of Land.
26. 9. 58
1
Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881
26. 9. 58
2
Income-Tax Act, 1922
26. 9. 58
3
Contract Act, 1872
26. 9. 58
4
Reform of Judicial Administration
6. 9. 58
Annexure II
PRECEEDING LAW COMMISSIONS
Second Law Commission
958-61
Mr. Justice T. V. Venkatarama Aiyar.
Third Law Commission
961-64
Mr. Justice J. L. Kapur
Fourth Law Commission
964-68
Mr. Justice J. L. Kapur
Fifth Law Commission
968-71
Mr. K. V. K. Sundaram, I. C. S.
Sixth Law Commission
971-74
Mr. Justice Dr. P. B. Gajendragadkar
Seventh Law Commission
974-77
Mr. Justice Dr. P. B. Gajendragadkar
Eighth Law Commission
977-79
Mr. Justice H. R. Khanna
Ninth Law Commission
979-80
Mr. Justice P. V. Dixit
Tenth Law Commission
981-85
Mr. Justice K. K. Mathew
Eleventh Law Commission
985-88
Mr. Justice D. A. Desai
Twelfth Law Commission
988-91
Mr. Justice M. P. Thakkar
Thirteenth Law Commission
991-94
Mr. Justice K. N. Singh
Fourteenth Law Commission
995-97
Mr. Justice K Jayachandra Reddy
Fifteenth Law Commission
997-2000
Mr. Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy
Sixteenth Law Commission
2000-2001
2002-2003
Mr. Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy
Mr. Justice M. Jagannadha Rao
Seventeenth Law Commission
2003-2006
Mr. Justice M. Jagannadha Rao
See V.R. Krishna Iyer, Constitutional Miscellany, 2nd Ed., Chapter-VI, Eastern Book Co. (2003)
2 See Upendra Baxi, The Illustrated Weekly of India, June 17, 1984.
3 J.K. Mittal, Indian Legal and Constitutional History, 14th Ed., Allahbad Law Agency. (2004)
4 Infra note 8.
5 See Hansard, House of Commons Debates, Third Series. Vol. XIX, pp. 531-33.
6 From 1800-1859. He was an English Whig lawyer, politician, essayist, poet and popular historian.
7 See Letter of 14th Oct., 1837, prefixed to the Draft Penal Code.
8 Art. 372: "All the laws in force in the territory of India immediately before the commencement of the Constitution are to continue in force until altered, repealed or amended."
9 The effect of art. 372 is to continue the entire body of law as prevailing in India before the Constitution came into force. Not only statutory law but also non-statutory law remains in operation. But, as held by the Supreme Court in State of Madras v. Menon, AIR 1954 SC 517, such a statute which does not accord with the new independent status of India could not be continued: M.P. Jain, Indian Constitutional Law, p. 1781 (2003).
0 Art. 372 continue the pre-constitutional laws subject to the provisions of the Constitution. Thus, no law is valid if it contravenes a Fundamental Right or any other person of the Constitution.
1 See Law Commission, XIV Report, 1 (1958).
2 Emphasis supplied.
3 See infra at p. 19.
4 See infra at p. 20.
5 Emphasis supplied.
6 Upendra Baxi, The Crisis of the Indian Legal System, p. 288. (1982)
7 Ibid at p. 86.
8 Reform Jan. 1981 No.21.
