History and Development of Law Report in India

Submitted by

Vipin Pandey

SM0115059

Faculty in Charge

Ms. Namrata Gogoi

(Asst. Prof. of History)

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

-18th April, 2016

 CONTENTS

1. Introduction and Background

1.1. Objectives and Scope

1.2. Review of Existing Literature

1.3. Research Methodology

1.4. Research Question

2. Development of Law Reporting in India

2.1 Pre Independence Period

2.2 Post Independence Period

3. e-Reporting

4. Analyzing the Present State of Law Reporting in India

5. Conclusion

Bibliography
 Introduction

It is useful to make clear at the very outset that every historian is feared of using the word
‘origin’ as there always lies the possibility of finding a starting point of any phenomenon, which
forms the subject matter of research, much earlier than the historian would ever have
contemplated. Therefore even though the title of the paper is origin and development of law
reporting, the present paper has included the study of only of those periods, accounts of which
are readily available and from when the law reporting in more or less formalized manner was
started.

In present days the common law doctrine of precedent is well rooted in mostly every legal
system, the object of which seems to be to guide the courts and individuals through a common
path and to provide some kind of uniformity in decisions. Also now days it seems to have
become the matter of respecting the Higher Courts. For example if the highest court of India
takes a particular stand on an issue and next day the lower rungs of judiciary and hold the logic
wrong and refuse to abide by the logic adopted by the Higher Courts, this would pose a question
upon the competence of higher judiciary1. As far as India is concerned the common law doctrine
of Precedent has been given a much-concretized shape by Article 141 of the Constitution of
India, which makes it binding upon every other Court in the territory of India, the law declared
by the Supreme Court as to be binding upon them. With regards to the judgements of various
High Courts though no such formal recognition has been made in the Constitution or in any other
existing legislation however it is well-settled by now that they are equally binding.

For the operation of the doctrine of Precedent, publication of decision becomes necessary. The
law reports must exactly tell you what is the contemporary law correctly.

The present paper delves into the aspect of how did the Law Reporting tradition has developed
over a period of time and how did it come to present state.

1
J. K. MITTAL, History of Law Reporting in India, 2007, pp 1-2
1.1 Scope and objectives
Scope of this project is to explore the tradition of law reporting since its inception in a
formalized manner and to analyze it at its present state. The main problem while collecting
the material for paper was the dearth of material especially in the area of India law
reporting.
The main objective of this project is to analyze the topic History and Development of Law
Reporting in India. The other objective of this project is to analyze and find defects in the
present law reporting system in India.
1.2 Review of Existing Literature

M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis

Nexis (Nagpur), 2011

This book helped me in understanding my project topic i.e. “History and Development of Law
Reporting in India”. It also helped me in analyzing the development of law reporting in India
from colonial period till independence.

J. K. MITTAL, History of Law Reporting in India, 2007

This article helped me in getting the overview of the topic. It also helped me in understanding the
history of Law Reporting in India.

http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/about/about-the-legal-profession/legal-education-in-the-
united-kingdom/

This website helped me in understanding about different courts and their law reporting system
during colonial period.

1.3 Research Methodology

The researcher has used the doctrinal study in the making of this project as various books,
articles, journals, etc. have been relied upon; and since the empirical wasn’t possible for
purpose, the research has been confined to doctrinal research mainly. The method of data
collection is secondary. The research design have been used are analytical and explanatory.
1.3 Research Question
 Why do we need law reporting?
 How did start in India and developed through times?
 Are there any defects in present law reporting system?

Development of Law Reporting in India

It is intriguing note that Law Reporting framework in India appeared just when the Supreme
Courts were set up at Calcutta in 1774. In the first place there was no sorted out arrangement
of reporting. Early reporting, as it was in England in USA, was just a private undertaking
done either by few rehearsing Lawyers or Judges with a perspective to forestall much
contrariety of judgment and to deliver consistency of choice2.

To name the reports, relating to the Calcutta Supreme Court, Morton's Reports are the most
punctual. These were distributed in 1841 and they cover a long stretch from 1774 to 1841.
For the Supreme Court at Madras, the main accumulation of cases to be found is that
distributed by Chief Justice Sir Thomas Strange in 1816, which secured period from 1798 to
18163. For the Supreme Court at Bombay, Sir Erkstine perry, one of its boss Justice, made
two accumulations. One of them was to outline the oriental life and the utilization of English
Law to India chose by the Bombay Supreme Court.

On the sides of the Sadr Adalats, which were Company's Courts and were the summit of
mofussil legal framework, Sir William Hay Macnaughten was pioneer of the law reporting.
At Sadr Diwani Adalat in Bombay, a judge of the Adalat in 1825 distributed two volumes of

2
J. K. MITTAL, History of Law Reporting in India, 2007, pp -3
3
Ibid(2)
 cases chose by Sadr Diwani Adalat, Bombay4. On the Sadr Nizamat Adalat side just two
arrangement containing criminal cases were distributed.

2.1 Pre-Independence Period

 Law Reports-Supreme Courts

Law reporting began in India with the formation of the Supreme Court in 1774.
Initially, there was no composed arrangement of law reporting. Early reporting was a private
undertaking; just sporadic individual endeavors at reporting were made by the honing
lawyers or judges and the hidden intention was 'kto avoid much contrariety of judgment and
to deliver consistency of choice" on matters on which a contention of choices would be
heartbreaking. To begin with, reports of instances of the Supreme Court at Calcutta were
embedded by method for delineation in certain legitimate productions. Sir Francis
Macnaghten, once a Judge of the Court, incorporated certain cases in his Considerations
upon Hindu Law distributed in 1824. These reports from the way of the work were restricted
to cases including inquiries of Hindu Law. Sir William Macnaghten took similar torments in
his Dissertations on Mohammedan Law distributed in 18255. Notes of cases were contained
in Longueville Clarke's version of the Rules and Orders of the Supreme Court distributed in
1829. These notes of cases are exceptionally important and identify with purposes of law of
awesome hobby. Notes of cases were embedded in Smoult's 'Gathering of Orders from 1774
to 1813 distributed in 18346. These notes are compact however profoundly helpful and
contain choices essentially on purposes of practice from the year 1774 to 1798

 Reports of the Sadr Diwani Adalats

The Sadr Adalats were Company' courts and were at the apex of the mofussil judicial
system. The first printed reports of the cases decided in the Sadr Diwani Adalat at Calcutta

4
Ibid(2)

5 M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis Nexis (Nagpur), 2011, pp 562-564

6
Ibid(5)
 were started by Sir William Hay Macnaghten, when he was the Registrar of the Adalat7. The
series has seven volumes covering the period of 1791 to 1849, In 1827, a second edition of
the first two volumes of the series was reprinted. The reports contained in the first volume
were chiefly prepared by Dorin who was later appointed a Judge of the Adalat. The notes
appended to cases in this volume are entiled to great weight as they were written or
approved by the Judges who decided the cases; and those explaining the intricate points of
Hindu law are especially valuable as coming from the pen of Henry Colebrooke8. The
second, third and a part of the fourth volumes were published by Sir William Macnaghten;
the later portion of the fourth volume contains cases selected and prepared by C. Udney, his
successor in the Registrar's office. The cases contained in the fifth volume were reported by
Sutherland; those given in the sixth and seventh volumes have no reporters' names affixed,
but they were approved by court, and were prepared by the Registrar.

 Reports of the Sadr Nizamat Adalats

In the branch of criminal judicature, the reports are comparatively fewer as compared
with those of the civil judicature. Only two series of reports appear to have been printed for
criminal cases. One comprises five volumes and contains sentences of the Nizamat Adalat at
Calcutta. The first two volumes were prepared by Sir William Macnaghten ; the three last
volumes have no reporter's name. The second series contains reports of criminal cases
determined in the Sadar Fozdari Adalat of Bombay from 1827 to 1846. 1 he compilation is
by Beliasis, Deputy Registrar of the Court ; and the cases have been selected to illustrate the
application of the law both on questions of evidence and of punishment, and also to settle
doubtful points of procedure and practice. The first volume was published in the year 1849.
From 1851, a monthly series of Nizamat Adalat at Calcutta began to appear. At about the
same time, monthly reports of the Madras Sadar Fozdari Adalat began to appear. The
reports of the Sadar Fozdari Adalat of Bombay from 1827-1846 were published in 1848.

7
M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis Nexis (Nagpur), 2011, pp 564-565
8
Ibid(7)
  Early High Court Reports

The establishment of the High Courts in 1862 is a conspicuous landmark, an event of unique
importance and the precursor of the modern era of law and justice. The High Courts brought
in their wake official reports. The Madras High Court brought along with it the Madras High
Court Reports in eight volumes covering a period from 1862 to 1875. They constitute a
fairly well edited series ; the facts are given in full and so also the judgments of the lower
courts whenever necessary9. Occasionally, though not always, arguments of the counsel are
also given. Similar reports came into existence for the High Courts of Bombay and Calcutta.
There are 12 volumes of the Bombay High Court Reports for the period 1862-187510. The
various High Court Reports were published by the Government through the help of official
reporters. Along with these official reports, but competing with them, there came into
existence some private publications also, such as, the Weekly Reporter, Indian Jurist at
Calcutta, Madras Jurist at Madras, 2 volumes of Hyde E. Reports of the Calcutta High Court
for 1862-63, 3 volumes of Kinealy and Henderson Reports of the Calcutta High Court of
1881-1883, and 15 volumes of Bengal Law Reports for 1868-76 for the Calcutta High
Court.

 Reports of the Privy Council—Federal Court—Supreme Court

The Privy Council served as the highest court of appeal from India and the reports of the
Privy Council cases were thus of a fundamental value to the Indian lawyers and courts.
There have been several collections of cases decided by the Privy Council in early days11.
One such collection, which includes some cases of the Privy Council on appeal from India,
was compiled by Jerom William Knapp in three volumes covering the period from 1829 to
1836. All cases contained therein have been reprinted in the English Reports (E.R.) in the
twelfth volume. Another collection of the Privy Council cases is by Knapp and Moore.

9
M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis Nexis (Nagpur), 2011, pp 566-567
10
Ibid(9)
11
M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis Nexis (Nagpur), 2011, pp 570-572
2.1 Post-Independence Period

 Indian Supreme Court Law Reporter (ISCLR)

The official reporter for Supreme Court decisions is the Supreme Court Reports. These
reports however lag behind other journals in the speed of reporting. Whilst decisions
themselves are uploaded by the Supreme Court itself on www.courtnic.nic.in, the edited
versions with headnotes in the official reporter take years to compile. However, some
reporters have been authorised to publish the Court's decisions.

 All India Reporter (AIR)

The All India Reporter (AIR) is an old and respected reporter that, in addition to the
Supreme Court, also reports decisions of the various State High Courts. The All India
Reporter (AIR) is the most popular nationwide reporter for decisions of the High Courts. An
AIR High Court citation looks like: Surjya Kumar Das v. Maya Dutta AIR 1982 Cal 222,
where "Cal" refers to the Calcutta High Court in Kolkata. This is a uniform style for AIR
High Court reports. Only the shortened indicator of the forum changes for different High
Courts.

 National Judicial Reference System (NJRS)

National Judicial Reference System (NJRS) is a project started by the Income-tax
Department, Government of India. It has been envisaged as a tool to achieve efficiency in
the tax litigation process of Income Tax Department (ITD). Within this project the Judicial
Research & Reference System (JRRS) – JRRS is a repository of judicial orders as a single,
indexed, searchable, cross-linked, database of Judgments / orders of ITAT, Authority of
Advance Ruling (AAR), HC and SC.

e-Reporting
Since the end of the twentieth century, each circle of human life is being influenced by the
coming of electronic assets. Law reporting being no special case to that has additionally
been enormously influenced by the same. Prior when it would it take no less than a couple
 of weeks to spread the different recently chose judgements, now the time is lessened just to
couple of hours. Indeed, even before we go further into the quick and dirty's of e-reporting,
it is essential to realize that are two sorts of such reports, one that are delivered in CD-ROM
shape, for example, the Grand-Jurix, SCC on Line, and so on and the other that are offered
as an on line administrations, for example, Manupatra, Lexis…12 and so forth.. These
electronic reports have demonstrated to extremely effective as law correspondents as well as
a speedy inquiry apparatus likewise, particularly when one is taking a shot at another and
surprising point. With the assistance of databases, for example, Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw
International now it has turned out to be a great deal more less demanding to get to the
statutes and choices of remote nations which has had a shocking effect upon the
improvement of law and lawful procedures.

There are number of attributes of the computerized and PC environment that were not show
in the print environment, for example, boundless capacity limit, seek abilities and the most
vital is the rate with which the choices and enactments can be conveyed13.

In any case this correspondence insurgency has delivered certain issues likewise with it. It is
clear at this point history of the tenet of Judicial point of reference is personally bound up
with the historical backdrop of law reporting and the advancement of law reporting. The
advancement of point of reference gives conviction and security in the law with the goal that
nationals may depend upon it to arrange their issues14. Be that as it may this correspondence
insurgency appears to represent an awesome danger to this long custom of point of
reference. Issue is that the clients may adjust data at a work station to address whatever
issue might be required. There are programming which empowers one to control and change
the data. As a consequence of this, the validness of the data, rather than the printed report
where by excellence its presence the validity is expected, can't be accepted. Different Courts
like U.S. Preeminent Court, Supreme Court of Canada, High Court of Australia and House

12
Sahil Mishra, e-reporting in India, 2015, pp 1-7
13
Ibid(12)
14
Ibid(12)
 of Lords to conquer this issue acquire validness and unwavering quality in those locales just
which are worked by the Court or the legislative association in charge of the Court.

Another issue emerges is that of expense which is particular to online reports since
administration suppliers charge cash each time one looks for any sort of data15. This goes
about as a noteworthy obstruction for the majority of the individuals from lawful crew to
benefit of these administrations.

Analyzing the Present State of Law Reporting in India

It would be guileless to say that Law Reports are in flawless state and there is no degree for
development in them. All Forms of law Reporting must be viewed as transitional and
fragmented. The arrangement of Law Reporting as it works in India today is neither
effective nor convenient basically because of the reasons said before i.e. of plenty of awful
law reports and of shortage of value law reports. Despite having official reports like
Supreme Court Review and arrangement of Indian Law Reports, they are scarcely refered to
in the Courts, which goes far to demonstrate the nature of these law reports. One of the most
serious issues that I consider with these reports is of gigantic deferral that is created in
reporting the judgments. It should dependably be recalled that law being alert, reporting a
more established judgment may very well be a misuse of assets in light of that case being
overruled. Accordingly defer might be the most unwelcome thing in law reporting
convention. As a consequence of these sorts of authority law reports we have a great deal
numerous private reports. Issue with depending by and large upon private reports is that
they could conceivably report a vital choice or even go to the degree of distorting of a
judgment, which because of the assumption of their validity can bring about grave bad form.

Another issue with law reports is that a large portion of them unpredictably report
judgements without inquisitive whether they have any pertinence as points of reference or
not.

15
Ibid(12)
As consequence of every one of these issues the Law Commission in its Fourteenth Report
proposed of constitution of a gathering like Incorporated Council in India. It recommended
the thought of having Law Reporting Council for every state, which would be free of
Government. Subject to the supervision and control of the Council an article was likewise to
be designated. I question the common sense of this proposal. It is likewise recommended by
lawful researchers that the foundation of law reporting is the effectiveness of the staff,
which would help the article board in law reporting. For this preparation of law journalists
and legitimate compensation was likewise proposed.

As I would see it if the Reporting Councils would be free of Government control there
would not be any contrast between the reports of these Councils and those of private
journalists and both will be helpless to the same sort of issues.

To the extent essentials of good law reporting are concerned the Law Commission
recommended that the law reports ought to be exact and full, so that the genuine standard set
around the choice might be derived.

Mr. B I Taraporewala, a main columnist of Bombay High Court once communicated his
perspectives on the essentials of a decent law reporting and said that "if a layman untrained
in Law can comprehend the issues included in a legitimate report at the primary perusing
then the journalist has benefited an occupation." In his supposition a gifted correspondent
must ace the specialty of exact written work. As indicated by an all around repudiated
legitimate researcher A L Goodhart an agreeable arrangement of law reporting must meet
three prerequisites of precision of speed and culmination.

Another issue of Law Reporting is that it has been diminished over a timeframe to simply
selecting what judgements to distribute and what to not and to get ready head-notes, which
can't be said to be adequate. The convention, which was common amid the medieval times
of legal counselors listening in the Court every one of the contentions and taking downs
every one of the contentions and issues raised by the guidance, is no more a mainstream
thought. So the correspondents just depend upon the assessments of judges where they have
incorporated the contentions of both the sides. Likewise there is no enactment obliging
judges to incorporate every one of the purposes of guidance. In this way what we get today
as law reports is only the suppositions communicated by judges in different cases. This
generally doesn't give the genuine record of the procedures of the case. Answer for this may
be to name assistants in Court to record everything happening in the courts or to make it
compulsory for each law degree holder who is to rehearse in the court to work like in the
way proposed above for a fix timeframe. Here by propelling this recommendation I am not
getting into any approach making issues but rather simply wandering into endorsing an exit
plan.

Conclusion
We have found in last few pages that the law reporting which is currently likewise
considered to have a beneficent item begun as a private undertaking through get ready notes
for self-use. At that point the legal counselor's craving for status, proficient standing, and
political favorable position propelled him to compose for the press. This advancement of
printing of law from simply composing original copies had both positive and negative
meanings. Until further notice however it acted against the aggregate enthusiasm of specific
attorneys however over the long haul, the same demonstrated to helpful to the whole lawful
calling by taking the reports out for general feedback. This underlying advancement was
fundamental to for the teaching of point of reference to connected in real practice, which is
inseparably connected to law reporting.

In India the law reporting began after the foundation of Courts by British. In this manner,
we began specifically from the contemporary improvements happening here in England. To
the extent current situation with law reporting in India is considered there is no disavowal of
certainty that we have enhanced a ton around there, still it is a long way from being
acceptable. There are plenty of private law reports being refered to in the courts, which
continually posture risk of misdirecting the organization of equity procedure. Today what
we have to take a stab at is the nature of law reports not the amount.

Likewise now we are in condition of move — moving far from the print worldview towards
the computerized worldview. We haven't been yet separated from the one and not
completely connected to the next. Just issue this new type of law reporting postures is that
 of its validness which thus leaves the inquiry open of whether the regulation of point of
reference will have the same part and could be utilized in the same way in the internet?

Bibliography

 Book

M P Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, Published by : Lexis

Nexis (Nagpur), 2011

 Article

J. K. MITTAL, History of Law Reporting in India, 2007

 Website

http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/about/about-the-legal-profession/legal-education-in-
the-united-kingdom/