Browsing by Subject "Judiciary"

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Open Access
Constitution and its Importance to Bring Social Change in India
(University of North Bengal, 2020-03) Talukdar, Sougata
Social Change is the obvious requirement of the time and its abstract idea evinces change of characteristics of a group of people. The adaptation and enforcement of the Constitution of India was the path breaking event in the Indian socio-political structure. Since then the Constitution of India has travelled a long way through various amendments to adapt the requirements of time. The Constitutional philosophy in India relating to social change derived from the schemes of the preamble, fundamental rights and directive principles of state policy. All these parts explain various factors and freedoms which are the basic requirements of the prospective social changes. With the modernisation of the society, the Constitutional goals as mentioned in the preamble and various rights and sureties under Part III and IV the Constitution are shaping day by day with new outlooks. This new trend to interpret the Constitutional provisions by the Judiciary to bring the required social changes projects the Constitution as an instrument of social change. Thus, this Article primarily enquires about the Constitutional inputs to the social change in India.
Open Access
Judicial Opinion on Whether Personal Law is a “Law” under Article 13 of the Constitution of India
(University of North Bengal, 2023-09) Kejriwal, Shruti
India is a land of religious pluralism. Every religion has its own set of customs and rituals. Personal law may apply to either a group or an individual. It is applied based on the faith or the religion, which an individual chooses to practice and profess. In India, there have been migrations and invasions by varied foreign rulers, which have led to multiple set of personal laws. Some practices of these religions are discriminatory on the ground of gender. Contemporary India witnesses the upsurge of feminist legal responses on the concerns of gender inequality in religious laws. Beginning from the Constituent Assembly Debates to the formation of the Constitution of India and then the unclear varying judicial pronouncements in relation to the personal laws by the Indian judiciary have made the topic of personal laws dynamic. In this context, it is imperative to understand the concept of personal laws as it prevails today. This article looks into the location of personal laws within the structure of Article 13 of the Constitution of India.
Open Access
Judiciary in India: The Dialogic Space
(University of North Bengal, 2015) Chakraborty, Ranjita
The judiciary in India has been praised and blamed in the same breath, praised for being the voice of the people, upholding democracy in India at a time when faith in the other institutio ns responsible for upholding democracy is ebbing, and blamed for making a mark in the number of pending cases that stands to at present a scary 3.2crores figure. Critics point to this pendency as undesirable, for justice delayed is justice denied. The crit ics further point out that this delay is caused by the tendency of the judiciary in India to go for sensationalism and overreach, taking up cases for hearing that are sensational and in the process not responding to the civil and criminal cases that get fi led in the courts. Supporters of the judiciary however, have reasons for this pendency like the strength of the judiciary and the number of cases to be heard ratio, vacancies, poor infrastructure and support system etc. This is the political argument which the present paper would not focus on but would, by a discussion of some select cases; attempt to highlight the representational role played by the judiciary in India, facilitating the creation of a space for dialogue between the different sections of the society in India.
Open Access
Significance of TPDS in the Light of Indian Legal Regime - An Overview
(University of North Bengal, 2021-09) Sarkar, Pratim
Poverty, hunger and food insecurity omnipresent reality in India. Government has implemented many programmes, schemes and policies to control poverty and foster development. Right to food is a basic human right and deeply linked with right to live with dignity. Articles 21, 39(a) & 27 of the Constitution mandates the states to provide adequate means of livelihood, raise the level of nutrition and standard of living of the citizens. As per the data report of national and international agencies, a large number people in India are suffering from malnutrition, undernourished, underweight and stunted. In many cases Indian Judiciary has taken serious concern about the socioeconomic offences. Targeted Public Distribution System is a major and wide-ranging poverty alleviation programme in India that leads towards the socio-economic welfare of the people. Essential foodstuffs like rice, sugar, wheat, kerosene and other goods are supplied to people through this system at a cheap price. Though it is commendable step to ensure food security to the needy people but could not achieve its desired results because of widespread corruption, leakage of funds and other reasons.
Open Access
Violation, resistance and repression : a study of crime, public disorder and control in colonial North Bengal (1864-1947)
(University of North Bengal, 2023) Barman, Tushar Kanti; Bhattacharya, Dahlia; Khasnobish, Sudip
'The concept or crime. criminality and public disorder and its control during colonial rule is one of the most debated issues chat added a new dimension to the arena of social histor~,. Crime is a social phenomenon and the simple definition or crime is that it is an action punishable by criminal law. No behavior or action can be ,iudged as crime without the legal provision or punishment. But it is di mcult to understand what the historical definition of crime in colonial India was. as the rulers who codified the criminality of Indians to all kinds of prejudices· against the people whom they ruled. Hence. the legal inspection of crime and criminality in colonial lndia was effectively a colonial construction. Similarly. the term ·public disorder' resulting from group actions. violating legal norms which are closely related to the concept of crime as traditionally understood. Therefore, public disorder is a situation in which public order is violated or threatened. Hereafter. widespread violent clashes between n,vo or more groups. such as communal riots. peasant's agitation. labour unrest. political violenc;c etc. would pose grave threats to public order. In the colonial discourse every widespread violent activity were treated as public disorder but for the Indians it ww, a survival or protest against the colonial oppressor. I lowcver, since the days of British inception. Northern Bengal had shown diverse forms of crime ranging from dacoity or gang robbery Lo (')ett_ offences. In North Bengal number of notorious gang dacoites has been found who were involved in land as well as river dacoities accompanied by murders. In fact. it was an unavoidable and direct outcome of the Company's terrible fiscal policy along with money-lenders who frequently charged exorbitant rates or interest. Hereafter, some of them had ,ioined in crime by accident. !'iOmc for poverty and some for rncre curiosity and some people also joined to help the poor and needy. On the contrary, couple of references and o11icial accounts show that, the crirninals of this region usually came from the lower ordel' of the society and they have been involved in various forms of crime. Dacoity wa~ hereditary. and the nolorious gang concealed themselves among the heterogeneous class. Among them a group of tribes like Choto B!,agrya M11chi, llh11r, Pa/war Dusadh, Pasi. ( 'hai11 ,\tlallah Sandars and Mallahs were considered by the British authority as 'dangerous' community and they came under the Criminal Tribes /\ct. They were involved in dacoities. burglaries. thefls and river crimes mainly. It was impossible for the police to trace them out. Most or the suspect. could easily escape away to adjacent dense forest and neighboring State. Similarly. crime related to property. skirmishes due to civil dispute. forgery, will ful murder out of suspicion remained high during this period in North Bt:ngal. This system victimized even women. There have been lots of instances wh<.!re women were abused. abducted and harassed in many ways. The civil disputes relating to crops and personal vendetta led Lo affray. Murder also rose due to personal disputes and fraud. Murder or the children and prostitutes for the sake of ornaments was also a widespread crime in some districts of North Bengal. In regards to the public order problem. 1he major issues of public disorder which rocked Northern part of Bengal were agrarian unrest, tea garden workers agitation. tailway workers unrest etc. which the historians have called survival or protest crimes. A class of educated intellectual citizens came forward against this British exploitation and oppression of the regime that was able to spread the form of British exploitation lO the masses in every canopy. Among the public order issues most important were the Rangpur Rebell ion, Indigo Revolt, Chatrishu movement. tea garden workers unrest e1c. Furthermore, affray and riots. rai lway industrial workers unrest was a particular type of violent collective ··offences'·, attended with or without loss of I ite, against person or persons. widespread in the countryside in the phase of colonial rule. It was usually an open shadow of violence between two armed parties over a variety of rural disputes. Although the colonial government did nor attach much irnportance to such criminal activity in the early stages. they gradually became alarmed as the level of crime increased. Because 1·he main target of the criminals was the English merchants. indigo factories. or the Zamindrrs, .lotedars and moneylenders who were loyal to the British government. So, all this crime and criminals threatened the colonial administration. To curb the crime and to establish peace in the second half of the nineteenth century the colonial government took various administrative measures in the districts of North Bengal. The British government was determined to put down offl!nces against property. individuul life and ensure public safety to create a politic.al and administrative environment conducive to trade and investment and to maximize revenue extraction. Therefore. it became an objective necessity from the colonial viewpoint Lo codify the law. create a colonial police force as a legitimate instrument of coercion. reform of the court of justice from tor to bottom and renovale the rudimentary prison network that enabled the devices of control to prevent crime and to force the law and order in this portion of the country. 1 Ience, imprisonment and development of prisons as a penal institution under the British Raj were a significant addition in the criminal justice system of colonial North 81.:ngal as well as India. Thus. the history of crime. public disorder and its control in colon.ial North Bengal clearly emerges as a significant area of study. I Ience, the objet:Live of Lhe study is divided into some crucial themes. Firstly, viewing crime as an ingredient of social history, the study dealt with the evolution of crime and criminals from the backdrop of socio-economic and regional diversity anu the nature of colonial policies and exploitations. Similarly, lhe study intends to seek the rapiJ devdopmenL of tea and railway industry and modernization of economy and the relationship between crime and industrialization and crime and scarcity. Secondly. the study also intends to bring out certain unexplored facts of the major issues of public order problems which rocked No1thern part of Bengal as a form of colonial discourse i.e. • Public Disorder'. The study tries to analyze their causes in brief and main focus lies with the violent activities of the common people and how the colonial authorities approach to tackle such disorders and the responses of the colonial administration and its changing perceptions regarding crime and public order issues. Thirdly. the study is to provide an analysis of historical trends of the various institutions that has been used by colonial Government in the forms of control mechanism like police. Court. Jai I etc .. and how through this method of control their surveillance gesture was being fulfilled.