Understanding the Modern Judiciary in India: A Historical Perspective

Every time the Supreme Court strikes down a law or protects a citizen’s fundamental rights, it draws on an institutional history that stretches back nearly 250 years. The courts that decide India’s most important cases today did not appear overnight in 1950. They are the product of a long, layered evolution that began under British rule, absorbed Anglo-Saxon legal traditions, and was finally reshaped by the framers of the Constitution into an institution meant to serve a free people. Understanding this journey explains why the Indian judiciary looks and works the way it does.

The colonial origins of a formal court system 🔗

Before the British, justice in India was administered through a mix of royal courts, local panchayats, and religious and customary law. There was no single, uniform legal system. The arrival of the East India Company changed this, but the real turning point came when the British Parliament decided to regulate how the Company governed its territories.

The Regulating Act and the Supreme Court of Calcutta, 1773 🔗

The Regulating Act of 1773 was passed to fix the defects and corruption in the Company’s administration. One of its most significant innovations was judicial. Acting under this law, the Crown issued a Charter in 1774 establishing the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Calcutta. This was the first attempt at creating a separate and independent judicial system on Indian soil.

The court was composed of a Chief Justice and three puisne (junior) judges, all of whom had to be barristers from England with at least five years of experience. Sir Elijah Impey was appointed its first Chief Justice. It exercised civil, criminal, admiralty, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, primarily over British subjects and Company employees in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. For the first time, learned judges trained in English law were administering justice in India, marking the formal entry of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence into the subcontinent.

The new court was far from perfect. Its jurisdiction overlapped messily with the Company’s own courts, and it frequently clashed with the executive authority of the Governor-General and his Council. The controversial trial and execution of Maharaja Nandakumar for forgery raised early concerns about the misuse of judicial power. Despite these flaws, the institution set a precedent that would shape everything that followed.

A divided and confusing judicial landscape 🔗

Over the following decades, similar Supreme Courts were established in the other presidency towns, with Madras in 1800 and Bombay in 1823. Alongside these Crown Courts ran a parallel system of Company courts, the Sadar Diwani Adalat for civil matters and the Sadar Nizamat (or Faujdari) Adalat for criminal matters, which handled the rural mofussil areas.

This produced two rival sets of judicial institutions operating side by side. The Crown Courts followed English law, while the Company courts applied a mix of customary and local regulations. The jurisdictions were not clearly demarcated, procedures differed, and the result was frequent conflict and inconsistent decisions. Justice depended heavily on who you were and where you lived. This fragmentation made reform unavoidable.

Unification under the Indian High Courts Act, 1861 🔗

The push to merge these rival courts had been building for years. As early as 1829, the Chief Justice at Calcutta had stressed the need to fuse the two systems. After the Revolt of 1857, the Crown took direct control of India from the East India Company, and the moment for consolidation arrived.

Merging the old courts into High Courts 🔗

The Indian High Courts Act of 1861 was enacted by the British Parliament to reorganise and consolidate the judicial system. The Act itself did not create the courts directly. Instead, it empowered the Crown to establish, through Letters Patent, a High Court in each of the three presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. These new High Courts absorbed and replaced both the Supreme Courts and the Sadar Adalats.

This was the decisive step that ended the dual system. By merging the English Crown Courts with the native Company courts, the Act created a single, unified judicial body in each presidency. The High Courts inherited the combined jurisdiction of the abolished institutions, taking their original jurisdiction from the Supreme Courts and their appellate jurisdiction from the Sadar Adalats.

Each High Court was to consist of a Chief Justice and not more than fifteen judges. The Act deliberately drew judges from diverse professional backgrounds, including barristers, members of the covenanted civil service, and experienced pleaders, blending different strands of legal expertise. This unification streamlined the administration of justice and laid the structural foundation for the High Courts that continue to function across India today.

The Federal Court of 1935: a direct precursor 🔗

For all the progress made in 1861, one crucial element was still missing. There was no single apex court at the top of the system to provide final authority and uniformity across the whole of British India. Appeals from the High Courts went all the way to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, a distant body that symbolised continued colonial control.

The demand for a court of final appeal 🔗

The idea of an Indian court of final appeal had been championed for years. Sir Hari Singh Gour was among the first lawmakers to propose replacing the Privy Council with a domestic court of appeal, moving resolutions in the Central Legislative Assembly during the 1920s. Indian public opinion increasingly favoured ending the practice of sending appeals to London. By the early 1930s, the demand had gained official momentum.

Establishment under the Government of India Act, 1935 🔗

The Federal Court of India was created under the Government of India Act, 1935, and was inaugurated on 1 October 1937 in Delhi. It was given original, appellate, and advisory jurisdiction. Sir Maurice Gwyer served as its first Chief Justice. The court was structured with a Chief Justice and a limited number of puisne judges.

Its core function was constitutional. The Federal Court had exclusive original jurisdiction to resolve disputes between the centre and the provinces, and between the provinces themselves. It could hear appeals from the High Courts in cases involving the interpretation of the Government of India Act, and it introduced the concept of constitutional adjudication into the Indian context.

The Federal Court did not have the last word, however. A right of appeal to the Privy Council in London still remained, so true judicial sovereignty was incomplete. Even so, the Federal Court functioned until 1950 and served as the direct institutional predecessor of the Supreme Court of India. The apex court we have today traces its lineage straight back to this body.

The Constituent Assembly and the birth of the Supreme Court 🔗

When the Constituent Assembly began drafting the Constitution in 1946, it inherited this rich but incomplete judicial framework. The framers had a clear vision: independent India needed an apex court that was genuinely sovereign, free from colonial appellate control, and capable of protecting the rights of citizens against the state.

Designing an independent and integrated judiciary 🔗

The framers chose to build a single, integrated judiciary. Unlike the United States, where federal and state courts run as separate systems, India adopted a unified hierarchy with the Supreme Court at the apex, High Courts below it, and subordinate courts at the base. This design ensured that the same body of law would be interpreted consistently across the entire country, preserving national legal unity.

Judicial independence was the central concern. Many members of the Assembly were lawyers who had witnessed executive-dominated colonial justice firsthand, and they were determined to insulate the new judiciary from political interference. The Constitution embedded this independence not in one clause but through an interlocking set of safeguards, including secure tenure, protected salaries, and a difficult removal process, spread across the provisions dealing with the Union and State judiciary.

The roles of Ambedkar and Munshi 🔗

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, as Chairman of the Drafting Committee, was the principal architect of these provisions. He led the detailed debates on the Supreme Court, defending the scheme that made the judiciary, in his words, independent of the executive. When members proposed extreme measures, Ambedkar argued for a balanced approach. He notably resisted giving the Chief Justice sole or absolute power over judicial appointments, warning that placing unchecked authority in any one person was dangerous, a position recorded in the debates on judges’ selection.

K.M. Munshi, another influential member, played a key role in articulating the philosophy behind the design. When K.T. Shah moved an amendment seeking a rigid, watertight separation of the judiciary, Munshi supported maintaining judicial independence to the utmost possible extent while rejecting a doctrinaire separation of powers. He explained that the Constitution had invested the judiciary with as much independence as the Privy Council in England and, to a large extent, the Supreme Court of America, while keeping the system integrated rather than fragmented. The framers had learned both from the strengths of the colonial structure and from its shortcomings.

The Supreme Court takes its seat 🔗

The Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950, and the Supreme Court of India was established shortly after, replacing both the Federal Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the highest judicial authority. H.J. Kania became the first Chief Justice of India. For the first time, India had a fully sovereign apex court, with no appeals leaving the country.

The new court was designed as the guardian of the Constitution and the protector of fundamental rights. Through its writ jurisdiction under Article 32, citizens can approach it directly to enforce their fundamental rights. Through the power of judicial review, it can examine whether laws and executive actions comply with the Constitution. These powers transformed the apex court from a mere appellate body into a constitutional sentinel, and they remain at the heart of the judiciary’s role in Indian democracy.

From colonial instrument to constitutional guardian 🔗

The story of the modern judiciary is one of gradual transformation. What began in 1773 as an instrument of imperial control evolved, through unification in 1861 and the constitutional experiment of 1935, into the independent institution envisaged by the framers in 1950. The British introduced the structures, the legal vocabulary, and the hierarchy of courts, but the framers of the Constitution gave the system a new purpose: serving citizens rather than rulers. Each layer of this history is still visible in how courts function, in the language of judgments, and in the constitutional safeguards that protect judicial independence.

What do you think? Was the decision to retain so much of the colonial legal structure a pragmatic strength or a missed opportunity to design something entirely new for independent India? And in a single, integrated judiciary, how well do the safeguards designed in 1950 hold up against the pressures the courts face today?

References

1. https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/regulating-act-1773/
2. https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-2433-the-supreme-court-of-judicature-1774.html
3. https://www.adda247.com/question-answer/the-chief-justice-of-supreme-court-at-calcutta-appointed-as-per-the-provisions-of-regulating-act-1773-was/q.v1.2fa39818-7b72-4cda-a249-39a0950d5c96-en
4. https://www.gktoday.in/indian-high-courts-act-1861/
5. https://www.gktoday.in/indian-high-courts-act-1861-establishment-of-high-courts-of-calcutta-madras-and-bombay/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Court_of_India
7. https://www.legalbites.in/federal-court-established-under-goi-act-1935
8. https://www.ijlra.com/public/details/the-function-of-the-federal-court-in-british-india-by-mr-subhajit-das
9. https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/judges-selection-constituent-assembly
10. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1431293/
11. https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/supreme-court-of-india/