Indian Law

The legal practices and institutions of India

The general history of law in India is a well-documented case of reception as well as of grafting. Foreign laws have been “received” into the Indian subcontinent—for example, in the demand by the Hindus of Goa for Portuguese civil law; and the enactment by independent India of statutes such as the Estate Duty Act (1953), the Copyright Act (1957), and the Merchant Shipping Act (1958), which substantially reproduce English models. Foreign laws have also frequently been “grafted” upon indigenous laws, as is seen in both Anglo-Muslim and Hindu law. Legal institutions introduced by foreign governments were accepted readily by the Indians, either because they were compatible with existing trends or because they met new needs. Independence in 1947 brought an intensification of these processes.

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