I YEAR I SEMESTER B.COM.LL.B. (HONS.

) DEGREE

SOCIOLOGY

DISPUTES AND LAW IN INDIA

DATE OF SUBMISSION: - 16/09/2017

SUBMITTED TO:- Dr. Hemelatha Bhata
Assistance Professor of Sociology
Tamil Nadu National Law School
Trichy

SUBMITTED BY:-
Abhisek Dash
BA. LL.B. (Hons.), 1st Semester
Tamil Nadu National Law School
 CONTENTS
1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
2. DECLARATION
3. AUTHOR
4. INTRODUCTION
5. CASTE
6. LOCAL LAW WAY
7. DISPUTES SETELEMENTS OF VILLEAGES IN INDIA
8. AGENCIES FOR SANCTIONING CASTE
9. LAWYERS’ LAW
10. COUSTOMS AND LAW
11. CONCLUSION
 DECLARATION
I, ABHISEK DASH do hereby declare that the project entitled “ A detailed analysis on
DISPUTES AND LAW IN INDIA” submitted to Tamil Nadu National Law School in partial
fulfillment of requirement of award of degree in undergraduate in law is a record of
original work done by me under the supervision and guidance of Dr. HEMLATA BHAT,
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tamil Nadu National Law School and has not formed
basis for award of any degree or diploma or fellowship or any other title to any other
candidate of any university.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher (Asst. Prof

Dr.Hemelata Bhata ) as well as our VICE CHANCELLOR (Dr. Prof. Kamala Sankaran) who
gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic (POLITICS IN INDIA
AND SEARCH FOR A NEW REGIME), which also helped me in doing a lot of Research and i
came to know about so many new things I am really thankful to them.
Secondly i would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this
project within the limited time frame.
INTRODUCTION

In this review the discussion will be on Indian legal system after 1947 and its disputes.
A social norm is legal if its neglect is regularly met in threat or fact by the application of physical
force by individual of group possessing the social recoiznied privilege of so acting.-Hebbel

There were two sources of law in classical India--the texts of law or the Smritis as they were called
such as Manu Smriti and custom. The sastras or the sacred texts were sources of written law, and
customs, unwritten laws. "The sastra incorporated numerous customs, inevitably, since it was
itself the fruit of custom systematized.." Furthermore, since the sastra was based on "usage, in
particular in its practical (vyavaharic) chapters, usage may be cited to explain written law" and the
sastras (sacred texts concerning law) offered an umbrella "under which various judicial forms
could shelter." The relationship between sastric written laws and unwritten customs was complex.
There were many instances when customs contradicted written laws and rulers and judges of
society had to accept custom as a ground of valid law. Both the sastras and customs were presented
as constant and eternal but in reality both changed.1 However, both of these resisted absolute
codification and were subjects of interpretation. In the West, law is associated with the notion of
a fixed law and not much amenable to interpretation which makes Zygmunt Bauman to make the
contrast between law as characteristic of modernity and interpretativeness as characteristic of
postmodernity. But in classical Indian tradition it was interpretativeness which was at the core of
the rule of law. This openness towards interpretation was related to a sensitivity to contexts in
Indian traditions which is different from the context-transcendent character of modern law.

While the sastras and customs provided the sources of law, the actual juridical administration was
carried out by the law of the courts. In the administration of justice, the king was the highest
appellate court but there was autonomy of judges. The classical law of India, transformed through
the passage of time, continued for many centuries and when Muslims began their rule in India it
found Islamic law in its neighbourhood. But the Muslim rule did not alter the fundamental
structures of classical law of India. As Lingat helps us understand this: "The system which the
invaders imported was fundamentally similar to that of the Hindus xxx In either case the authority
of the law rested not on the will of those who were governed by it, but on divine revelation, on the
one hand The Koran and the Sunna, and on the other hand the Vedas and Smriti. " The Islamic
law was applied only to the believers, while Hindus were ruled by the Dharmasastras. In both
Hindu and Islamic laws interpretation had the same importance, and custom held a significant (if
not the same) role, "even though in principle it could not contradict a revealed text." But a major
transition in law and society took place when Indian society was subjected to British colonialism.
Though the initial period was a period of mutual stocktaking where even the ruling British did not
want to put an alien rule on the native soil, soon this gave rise to efforts to replace indigenous law
within the modern law. This is the story of colonial encounter in rule of law in Indian tradition and
society and there is a need to understand this at great length as the foundations of modern law laid

1
Caste in India , Cambridge university presss
during colonialism continue to influence and determine the relationship between law and society
in contemporary India.

There are two sects of norms will be found (1) local law ways (2)lawyer’s law’. Lawyers law refers
to statue, law report and dhrmasastraa lawyer’s law is threat set of norms stationed by the national
and state courts and administrative systems and their personal.

LOCAL LAW WAY

Village community viewed as (1) briary(2)jati which is predominate social relation.
There are four kind of village based on caste(1)small population of one caste (2)multi caste single
headed villages (3)multi caste dominant caste villages (4)multi caste non dominant villages.in such
a situation norms and articulation of public opinion is a problem. This are usually deals with the
village council meetings of adult males. Some members are hereditary and some are also elected.
if there are any further disputes village council is followed by an immediate referdum to general
public .in single caste village there is no conflict of inter caste .there is panchyat which decides in
every disputes . It consists of elderly male members of houses. It is usually dominated by higher
caste people or wealthy people s .
In multi caste single headed villages there is the domination by single and most power of who
virtue of his statues is a commanding position to settle dispute .apparently in most of the other
villages’ economics and social disputes settling and norms enforcing is impossible. There would
apart be some cultural expectation that the role of a headman is based not only on office, economic
dominance or ability to marshal force but also on the idea of a just good man .the caste like
deskhmukh, Rajput Gouda, dominated the villages.2
The multi caste village most common in Indian recent anthropological literature. Its relative
population is more than 700. Large number of castes stays in this village with ten to twenty five.
weather this typical village in India may lie open to question . Here caste can be called be dominant
when it preponderates numerically over the other caste and when it also wields preponderates
economic and political power .a large and powerful caste group can easily be dominant if its
position in the local caste hierarchy is not too low . Twelve villages were summarized .with the
expectation of a few artisan and serving castes and traders, and all others in the villeage are tenants
or labours on the land of dominant caste.3
In most dominant caste village the no dominant castes, including Brahmans if they are present and
are not the dominant caste are tied to the dominant caste through a number structured relationship
among which are jajmani system , landlord-tenants , contractual labors debtor-creditors relations.
The jugamani system is a system of a distribution in Indian villages where by high caste land
owning families called jajmans are provided services and products by vaarious lower carts such as
carpenters potters , blacksmiths sweepers and laundrymen’s. It should be noted that land holders

2
Bagly.S ,Essay on caste wars and the mandate of violence
3
Susan.B, caste society and politics in india , Cambridge university press
are the center of the system and even though there may be reciprocity of several types in the system
, the jajmani is dominant . The tie of a tenant to his land lord.

Panchyat :
The village scene underwent a sea-change in the medieval period. The temple and the village
council (panchayat) emerged as the most effective institutions. Medieval Hindu rulers neglected
their obligations to their subjects.

The people were left with no choice except to search for their own means of improving their lot.
The temple and the panchayat emerged as the means to a happy, healthy and productive life. The
panchayat protected people from exploitation by the government.

The temples maintained a good number of employees, patronised scholars, and served as
seminaries of higher knowledge and the fine arts. They also served as bankers and farmers, daily
feeding thousands of people, besides carrying on a variety of religious, educational and cultural
activities.4

DISPUTES SETTLEMENT IN VILLEAGE OF INDIA

Complex disputes and more serious breaches of village norms would appear to call
for more formal judicial procedure, which can be subsumed under the term panchyat
. A panchyat is frequently described in the literature as a council that puts emphasis
on membership and procedure. However here it is better to think of panchyat as a set of related
process of arbitration and adjudication even the kinds of process noted above , when one or two
dominant caste men listen to a dispute are often referred to as much as a panchyat . More serious
disputes, such as those over land, debt succession to property or office, ritual precedence, the theft
and assault, or breaches of ritual norms that might cause village wide pollution may come to
dominate caste.
Even many disputes within the dominant caste start within the extend or joint family over portion
of jointly held property .there are two main types of faction (1) where some or most of the dominant
caste are of one lineage. (2) Where cleavage appears between close agnatic kinsmen dominant
village groups are part of larger networks within their sub caste, which have or had formal or
informal mechanism for adjudication disputes within the group.
Some factors that enable the dominant caste to maintain its position without being factionalized as
in the village without dominant castes or head man :(1)the need to cooperate in rituals and
ceremonial occasion (2)cross the cutting ties (3)the threat to the position of dominance from a
lower caste or a combination of lower caste .

4
ShukulaL.P, History of Villeage panchyat in india
Disputes can’t be settled by this panchyats and other mechanisms ., it ultimately leads to a caste
ware . when commentaors refer to the phenomenon of caste war they generally have in mind the
types of conflict that first began to be observed in both backward and extensively commercialized
agriculture regions during late 1960. One of the most widely reported of these early outbreaks was
a grisly mas murder in tanjore region of the Tamil Land rice belt .this 1968 kielivenami masscare
was one of this gursome incident .

AGENCIES FOR SANCTIONG CASTE

Biradri the exogamous segment of north India in which boys and girls considered brothers and
sisters , hence can’t be marriage partner. The biradri jurisdiction may be a part of a village an entire
village group of a part of district . in north india thereare various name of it ilaka , juwar , tat chat
of ghol are given to biradri there may be at endogamous level the potential of a higher jurisdication
of biradri council.at both biradri and jati levels there may be a permanent headman who works in
connection with permanent or ahadhoc council. For a non-dominant caste council. Sanctions that
caste council can apply are finning, rituals expiation , public shaming , beating and out casting .
For example- “despite the rule of exogamy the Rajput and the khalpur do tend to marry with
villages with which they had prior affinal ties . In a study of marriage networks, JM Mahar found
almost half of the of rajputs marriage were arranged with spouses living in villages that already
maritial ties with khalapur” 5
Patnaik working on the basis of some documents of teli caste council of puri district in Odisha in
1937 , describes how a sanction agnist o teli who broke the rules agnist wine drinking was made
effective by sending notices to other caste council about out casting and requesting their
cooperation , inserting a notice in vercunalr language papers about the out caste .

LAWYER’S LAW
Local law ways and lawyer’s law and all India legal culture meets very often. Like most of the unit
of the society Indian villages are tied into network that retreated them to wider society regional
and national. Local law ways and lawyers law meet in sub district district provincial courts in
office of a wide range of revenue and welfare offices and in the actions of the police .The local
oaw ways are affected and have been affected by laws derived from administrative regulations and
judicial process of interpretation of laws and custom.
In many description of Indian villages there are accounts or mention of recourse to the state law
courts. Titles to land are part of system of private rights in land and are foreign to the village
system. The system of transfer of land was initiates by and maintained by, the administration. By
no means are all the disputes over land settled in the courts. Episteme presents an interesting case
in which a relatively powerless peasants and a peasant who had strong support on the village
panchyat had been contesting for the ownership of land for more than five years. the case had been
heard in the district court .In town and cities where the court are located there are nemesis legal

5
Kolenda.p , essay:social organization and deflected alliance system of rajputs,book: caste marriage and , rawat
publication
culture practitioners and person involved in the courts and their administration through whom the
village participate in the bottom levels of all India legeal culture . In the district court the lawyers
clientage of the pleaders appears to be based of the kinship and tettitorial ties .There has been
increasing interest on the part of anthropologist in the study of election and state politics of villeage
and town level and in describing and analyzing the interrelation of politician and peasants . the
existences of an external political authority to which cases may be taken for arbitration puts
pressure on panchayat members who wish to keep disputes within the village and away from
Mandy court or police to find a solution acceptable to both parties and disputes the possibility of
access to to external political authority re affirmed rather than weakened wangles indigenous
political system.
In recent years untouchable castes have been using the courts and have appealed to police and
other officials in attempts to improve their social and economic status in the village some are aware
in varying degrees and forms a variety of challenges politicians religious reformers and urban
experience that they are no longer liable to forced labor and that they should have equal access to
temple . a few are aware of constitutional rights .
Litigants had money and inclination cases could be posed through series of court to a high courts
in the provincial capitals. the British become aware of the consequences of their revenue and legeal
systenand the change affecting in social relation and throughout their rule they experimented and
changed , but each change increased the possibilities the manipulation . each system they tried for
the assement of revenue had to determine not only how much was drawn from the land in the form
of revenue and rent pending on the theory of land holding then in vogue of Indian British ruler 6

CUSTOMS AND LAW

The British courts in India legally defined customs to mean a rule which was followed by a
particular family tribe caste sects or group which had form long practice obtained the force of law.
custom which had form legally practice a particular group could overrule for that group , existing
general law relating to the same subjects .long practice as far as the courts were concerned had to
be proved as imperial or ancient judicially . Immemorial or ancient came in the courts to practice
s that could be proved to be thirty years old. By the twentieth century there were hand books of
customs for various regions to which lawyers and judge could turn .the Hindu laws and books on
religion and custom was written in Sanskrit. So births judges took help of Brahmin to understand
this laws. In 1820 s it become obvious to British that there was in practice no one fixed Hindu law
that applied invariably to all the Hindus and that in face quite contrary was true. There were major
schools of laws within which there was much variation from caste to caste and sometimes from
family to family. The function of pundit was not only repository of a fixed traditions law, but as a
sophisticated and sensitive interpreted of a changing legal culture. In Hindu legal texts there are
recognition of regional variation in customs as early as 500 bc .the search for a Hindu law
continued and in 1820 s doctrine of stare deciss grew in relation of adjudication of deputes
involving personal law. The publication of decision was haphazard and incomplete until the 1840s

6
the administration of hindu laws by british , comparative study of socity
when the provincial courts and collection of published cases for this period such as more Indian
appeal were made available .
Full official publication of reported cases began only after passage of the Indian law reports act
1875.by the end of 19th century Hindu laws based on published cases and was to lesser extent
based on legislation. only in the tenth century and in the large measure only since independent
with passage in national parliament and the state legislature of bills codifying Hindu laws has
certainty which the early early British judges sought begun to taken form . with passage of
legislation outlawing discrimination on the basis of caste eliminating all the bars in to marriage
outlawing polygyny for Hindus enabling girls to inherit part of their fathers estates and with the
passage of earlier laws regarding the age of marriage and permitting widow remarriage the legal
framework for large scale social changes has been established . There is however little evidence
that this legislation has affected marriage rules and family structure in the way of change of land
tenure have affected rural social structure. There is little mention in recent anthropological
literature.

CONCLUSION
The consequences of the British administrator and judges attempts of utilize Hindu law in the
administration of justice in India extremely difficult to access. Some scholar have argued that
births helped to ossify the society by ensuring what were already outdated legal materials. . Some
scholar also argued that Hindu laws war never fixed. It depend upon the ability of and discretion
of the judges how to interpret the laws. The social scientist must first document the facts of social
change and demonstrate the relation between the social change and the laws 7
"When we add new rules, we do not necessarily discard old ones, so that other rule becomes crowded
with obsolete, anachronistic and inconsistent rules. In India administration by impersonal rules resists
systematization because that demands continuous elimination of old and anachronistic rules." I A large
segment of Indian population feel that "rule following is not merely unjustified but counterproductive in
terms of their interest." Corruption and governmental lawlessness where states violate laws especially
with regard to human rights abuses and where Governments default "in the implementation of their
statutory obligations" are further challenges to the establishment of rule of law in India.

7
Katheelen.G, World revolution of family pattern, free pres