Good afternoon sir , my topic of research is development of criminal law in India.

So I will be talking about criminal legal system in different period such as ancient period , sultanate
period, mughal , and british period and then I will come to codification of substantive and criminal law.

In India, the history of codification of modern criminal law started with the emergence of British rule.
However Criminal law dates back to the Vedic age and rules of many Hindu and Muslim dynasties. The
modern criminal justice system is largely based on British laws and practices. Due to which large part of
criminal law that exists today still relies on British-era laws.

. In ancient period The law of the land was called Niti and Dharma given by the great Hindu lawgiver
Manu. Dharmasutras and Kautilya’s Arthashastra, have more comprehensive and developed criminal
law system. King was considered as “fountain of Justice’ and he had a sacred duty to punish the
wrongdoer.

In early society, when there was no State or other authority, the victim used to punish the wrongdoer
through revengeful methods. Even in Rig-Vedic period punishment were given by the victims
themselves. Great importance was attached to Dharma during the very early period of the Indian
civilizations.

Punishment is known as Dandaniti.” According to Manu, Yajnavalkya and Brihaspati there were
four methods of punishment

 Admonition
 Censure
 fine
 Corporal punishment.

Manu has given great importance to the purpose of these punishments

1. Incapacitation- making sure that the criminal would not be able to commit the same crime
again. For e.g. cutting hands of thief so he could not commit same crime

2.  Deterrence to set an example to the public for preventing future offences.

3 Rehabilitation to improves the character and conduct and places the offender on the
right path.
4 4. Providing justice

And In ancient period there was also relation btw caste and punishment, so the nature of
punishment varies with the Varna of the offender as well as of the victim. If a person of
higher caste cause injury to a person of lower caste then he will be given less severe
punishment but if a lower caste person inflicts injury to a person of a higher caste, his
punishment would be more severe.
Then we will see Criminal justice in sultanate period

The sultans implemented Shariat or the Islamic law of crime and penalty the chief sources of
Islamic law were the Quran, the Hadis and Ijma. The durbar of the sultan constituted the top civil
and criminal court of justice which took original as well as appellate cases.The village panchayat
could administered justice based on local traditions ,customs etc. The penal code was harsh, and
capital punishment constitutes a vital part of it.

Criminal justice in mughal india

Under the Islamic jurisprudence there are three types of offences

a. Offences against the state

b. Offences against the private individual
c. Offences against God

The punishment were classified into had, tazir , qisas

1. . Hadd in criminal law means specific punishment for specific offences. Fixed
punishments for crimes which are prescribed by the Quran or the Haddis. , it could not
be altered.it is applicable to both Muslims and non-Muslims. For instance, for apostasy,
the fixed punishment was death, .
2. tazir means censuring which was applicable to those offences which are not covered by
Hadd. . The punishment awarded was left completely to the discretion of the judge.
3. Qisas mean retaliation. it meant taking a hand for hand a life for a life. It is regarded as the
personal right of the victim or his next kin to cause similar injury to the culprit as he had
caused to the victim. Qisas became Diya when the relative of the victim accept money as
compensation for the price of blood.which is also known as blood money.

There are few defects of muslim criminal law

1. Criminal law is treated “as a branch of private law than a public law”.
2. Diya is most defective provision. Due to this provision, most of the time the murderer get
away from their punishment
3. it does not rely on the intent of guilty party but on the type of weapons use to commit the
crime
4. law of tazir was also vague and gave way to much power to the Qazis and judges, which
caused corruption and injustice.
5. law of evidence under Islamic law was primitive and has lots of defects. For instance, any
Muslim could not get capital punishment on the evidence of a non-believer. Evidence of
one Muslim is equivalent to two non-Muslim, similarly, evidence of two women are
equivalent to one man.
 Then Criminal law in british period in this period lot of modifications started in the muslim
laws.

In 1773, Warran Hasting proposed some modifications in Muslim criminal law and abolition of
privilege given to a son or nearest kin for releasing a murderer of their parents while presenting a
judicial plan for administrative justice in Bengal and Orissa.

Changes made inI1790-93 Lord Cornwallis initiated to modify Muslim criminal law in 1790. He
deprives the Nizam of any authority over Nizamat. He revokes crucial Muslim laws formulated
by Abu Hanifa. Hindus were then permitted to testify against Muslim accused in Muslim law.

Chnges made in 1799-1802- Lord Wellesly made few modifications Regulation of 1799
provides that all murderers will be given capital punishment the law started to make distinctions
between intentional and unintentional killing.

Criminal reform 1807-32- offences of perjury and forgery become more severe. punishments were
introduced to discourage dacoity. There were modifications made in laws related to adultery

Codification of Substantive Criminal Law- According to the Charter Act, 1833 India’s first law
commission in 1834 recommended for the drafting of the Indian Penal Code. The Code was a
comprehensive enactment describing all major crimes that existed at that time. In spite of various
revisions over almost thirty years, the law did not come into force until 1860. There have been
several amendments in IPC since it came into existence. Although IPC is largely based on British
laws and practices, many of its provisions are still the same.

Under the guidance of Lord Macaulay, in 1872 the Indian Evidence Act came into existence. It is
largely based on British law of evidence, but there have been many changes since its existence

Codification of Procedural Criminal Laws-Criminal Procedure Code for India was enacted by
the British in 1862. It was amended and replaced many times to make modern procedural laws.
After Independence, recommendations were made by the Law Commission to update CrPC. There
was the abolition of jury trials and most of the changes were made to make the criminal procedure
quick and efficient. The Parliament finally in 1973 again enacted CrPC, and it has been amended
several times since then.

Conclusion- The main object of criminal law is to protect the society from criminals .To achieve
this objective it is essential that the wrongdoers should have threat of punishments for the crimes
they have committed. During all the periods whether Hindu, Sultanate, Mughal or British, the
culprit were given punishments , so the victim get justice and society remain peaceful. Therefore,
criminal law, in its wider sense, consists of both the substantive criminal law and the procedural
(or adjective) criminal law. Substantive criminal law defines offences and prescribes
punishments for the same, while the procedural law administers the substantive law.
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