Experiments of A Law Teacher in Empirical Research

SCC Online Web Edition, © 2023 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
Page 1 Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Printed For: Sharon SV, Government Law College
SCC Online Web Edition: http://www.scconline.com
© 2023 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Lucknow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 JILI (1982) 863
Experiments of A Law Teacher in Empirical Research
EXPERIMENTS OF A LAW TEACHER IN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

by
Rajkumari Agrawala*
Introduction
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH in law is still a novelty for the Indian legal researchers. Its
value is also an open issue. Some persons advocate it, some are against it, while most
persons are either neutral, undecided or unconcerned with the competing claims of
various methods of legal research. However, all have one thing in common—the lack of
training in the methodology of empirical research. Those who are neutral, undecided or
unconcerned are fortunate since they are not confronted with any choice-making.
Those who arc against the empirical method are also not unduly disturbed; they are
satisfied with their routine technique of doctrinaire research. But the advocates of
empirical research are really in trouble. Being attracted by the empirical method, they
feel tempted, almost compelled, to try it, but do not know how and where to begin. I
happen to belong to this category. My experiments, including blunders, in empirical
research are quite an experience and worth narrating for the benefit of those who
might be thinking of venturing in this direction.
Belonging to a cadre of Indian law teachers who began their career in the mid-
fifties, went to the U.S.A. for further training and glanced through Julius Stone's
Province And Function of Law in the formative part of their career, I had a natural
dissatisfaction with the traditional model of legal research. Pure legal research seemed
too legalistic and dry. The model of legal research expected in India seemed to be very
uninteresting. The situation has not changed much over all these years. In contrast,
the Yale Law School experience and the pupilship of Professors Myres McDougal, Harold
Lasswell, Fowler Harper and F.S.C. Northrup had shown that legal research could be
lively, exciting, interesting and purposeful. Apparently, this was because at Yale, legal
research concentrated more on legal facts than on legal rules; also, it combined legal
facts with human facts. In india, on the other hand, legal rules overshadowed legal or
human facts in legal research. Legal research in India was not only dry and
uninteresting, but also inadequate, being strictly unidimensional. But what was the
alternative? What could be done about the inadequate and uninteresting quality of
Indian legal research? How was such research to be set free from the overwhelming
reference structure of a statute, rule,
Page: 864
section, subsection, clause, subclause and proviso? These were the questions, large as
life, that loomed before me who was a mere beginner.
Not too familiar with the term “empirical” till then, I started with the expression
“sociological”. This was taken to mean that research in law should be linked with
societal facts and attitudes. I was fully convinced that it should, and could be done.
But I had not the vaguest notion as to how it was to be done. Nor did I receive any
help from my colleagues, senior or junior. They, in fact, took it as a joke and, at best,
as part of the hangover of my stay in America. There was no question of conferring
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
with teachers of sociology because interdisciplinary interaction was totally unknown in

the fifties in our universities. We used to live then in isolated glory and blissful
ignorance, thanks to strict compartmentalisation among our respective disciplines. In
this atmosphere of unadulterated purity of each subject, I had no chance of learning a
method of research that was not used by law researchers. But unpreparedness inhibits
only the wise and the experienced; for the ignorant, ignorance is not a bar to an
attempt at action. Such was the starting point of my attempts at non-doctrinaire
research. Let me state that if I had not heard of the term “empirical”, I had also not
heard of the expression “doctrinaire”. I just wanted to avoid the over legalistic pattern
of research. I was keen to include more of the live element in legal enquiry; that was
all. I was wholly untrained in research methodology and had very little experience in
research exercise as such. It was in this background that I started on the pattern of
empirical research. Now unfolds the story of my experiments with empirical research.
Experiments
First attempt
The year was 1955, the place was the Department of Law, University of Lucknow
and my status was that of the junior most lecturer in the department. It was the year
in which, after prolonged debate, the Hindu Marriage Act was eventually passed by
Parliament. The Act was one of the most controversial legislative measures. It
introduced divorce and abolished bigamy among Hindus. Abolition of bigamy was
acceptable, but the introduction of divorce was considered to be antireligious and
immoral by most Hindus and especially by Hindu women. Opposition to divorce was
extensive and deeply fell. Professor Northrup's class lectures at Yale, propounding the
theory of living law and positive law and A.V. Dicey's book Law and Public Opinion in
the Nineteenth Century in England were still fresh in my mind. Thus the situation
seemed to be provocatively suitable for empirical research. I was motivated to
investigate the facts about law and practice of divorce among Hindus in India.
However, this research plan did not even reach the stage of a proper synopsis.
Reactions to my plan to investigate the facts about law of divorce ranged from
Page: 865
genuine disbelief in the efficacy and propriety of the project to genuine mockery of any
attempt at field work in legal research. A very senior and sober High Court judge said
that the Americans had lot of money and they could, therefore, undertake research for
finding out facts like which side of the shoe, left or right, gets more worn out in
walking on the highway. But he seriously doubted the legal relevance of these
researches. A senior colleague and former teacher very kindly, very solemnly explained
to me that the Hindu Marriage Act, having been duly passed by Parliament, was the
law. It would be applied by the courts, and in the process, its merits and demerits
would be discovered and interpreted. What people thought or did about divorce and
about the law of divorce might be interesting as information, but it was not part of
law. This was the considered opinion of a legal academic who had been brought up
upon Austin and Salmond and whose acquaintance with Roscoe Pound led only to
admiration, not to assimilation. Next, a close friend and colleague in the department
advised me that my idea was good, but I had better think of something tangible. The
good friend meant something sensible. Professional opposition was immense and
sufficient to deter me from undertaking the study I had planned. Let me add that even
if there had not been such opposition and even if I had been positively encouraged to
go ahead, I would not have known how to go about investigating the facts related to
divorce and to the law of divorce among Hindus. I had little comprehension of the
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
complexities of the inputs (of funds, energy, time and skill) required in a programme
of empirical research. Also, I had no appreciation of the fact that the size or the area of
universe taken up for enquiry is a major consideration in empirical research, so that an
empirical enquiry covering the entire country is an improbable, if not an impossible,
task for a single individual. This was the end of my first attempt at empirical research.
Second attempt
With twenty hours per week assignment of teaching LL.B. and LL.M. classes at the
University of Lucknow, research could not be and was not a priority item or occupation
with the teachers at that university. Yet, about five years later, somewhere around
1960-61, a legal research society was baptised by some members of the department.
One of its objects was to take up current socio-legal problems for research. It was
quite an improvement in the sense that now the “socio” aspect was included in legal
research. I picked up the topic “A Socio-Legal Study of the Problem of Prostitution in
Luknow” for research. This time, my endeavour reached the stage of a full-fledged
synopsis, and also with the improvement that the area of universe for study was just
one city. This was quite a manageable size for enquiry. If I remember rightly, the
queries formulated in the research plan related to the social, cultural and economic
background of the prostitutes, the reasons for their joining the profession and
remaining
Page: 866
in it, their personal and professional difficulties, an examination of the laws and the
byelaws of the municipal corporation relating to prostitution in Lucknow, and an
investigation of the need for amending the laws and byelaws in order to ameliorate the
lot of these women. I also recollect that for gathering information I had in mind a sort
of method which was to interview these women and their dalah (pimps). The then
dean of the faculty of law was the director of our research society. He was a man of
few words and was temperamentally averse to opposing things, ideas and persons.
But even he felt compelled to reject my proposal, finding it all social and very little
legal. This was the end of my second attempt at socio-legal or empirical research.
Again, I must admit that even if my proposal had been accepted, two major
deficiencies would have made the findings of my report quite unreliable. First, my
operation of conducting interviews would have been so unmethodical and crude that I
would not have got even the semblance of truth from the respondents, and, second, I
had totally ignored some very relevant parties for seeking information, e.g., the police,
medical officers, para-medicals (the midwives), social workers and lawyers, who were
knowledgeable on the subject. It was a grave omission because these groups, being
objective observers, would have furnished more reliable information than what could
be expected to have been obtained from the prostitutes and the dalals who were
directly involved in prostitution.
Third attempt
In 1968, when I joined the Post-Graduate Department of Law, University of Poona,
criminology was one of the courses assigned to me for LL.M. instruction. I found it a
fascinating subject, never for a moment dull or even insipid. It was full of research
potential. The reading materials on criminology that I could use were all from
disciplines other than the discipline of law, and were also foreign writings. I found this
interesting and considered it to be a rich area for empirical research in order to be
aware of Indian facts about crime. By then, the claims of empirical research in law
were no longer denied. The University of Poona being a smaller unit than the
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
University of Lucknow contact with other disciplines was easier, though not common.
With the help of a social science colleague, I soon drafted an emprical study project
entitled “Study of the Problem of Recidivism Among Women Prisoners in Maharashtra”,
and submitted it to the university for the grant of funds. I still believe that it was a
very meaningful research project and was well drafted. It was submitted to the
Research Grants Committee of the University of Poona because, till then, law was not
treated as one of the social sciences by the Indian Council of Social Science Research
(ICSSR). The University Grants Commission (UGC) was, till then, not so well known for
financially helping
Page: 867
research proposals at least in law. The Poona University committee, not having a legal
specialist among its members, referred the proposal to a very senior law teacher from
outside. He returned the proposal with a rejection slip and with the comment that “the
proposal is very well concieved and is also extremely meaningful, but it does not fall
within the ambit of law.” This was the fate of my third attempt at empirical research.
Fourth attempt
In 1974, while attending the All India Law Teachers' Conference in Delhi, I received
a note during one of the afternoon sessions that Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer wished to
see me. Coming out of the conference hall, I had the least notion of the reason for the
summons. He immediately came to the point that he wanted me to do some
exploratory research upon the viability of the proposed uniform civil code in the
country. Family law being my primary area of interest, the topic was to my liking, and
at last I was getting the long awaited chance of doing empirical research. Justice Iyer
was, at that time, associated with the ICSSR. He could, therefore, be sure of getting a
research grant for the proposal, even though the ICSSR had not, till then, formally
announced law as a social science discipline. Thereafter the ICSSR expressly included
law within its ambit for research funding. Thus, for me, the first opportunity for taking
up empirical research materialised neither by my effort nor by entry to the sponsoring
and funding institute as a matter of routine. Justice Iyer's support alone brought
recognition and legitimacy to the project in the right quarters. Why and how his choice
fell upon me for this project was then, and still is, unexplained, because I had at that
time no empirical research to my credit. It was one of those things that are called
chance or accident. Justice Iyer came down to Poona to discuss the rough draft of the
proposal. The draft was extremely general, but he approved of it and promised to see
it through as soon as it reached the ICSSR. The title of the project was “Attitudes of
Social Groups to Uniform Civil Code with Special Reference to Marriage”.
Now began the real difficulties, for I did not have a clue about how to present the
proposal to the ICSSR. The long awaited chance had come, the gift was in hand but
the big question now was, how was I to go about it. The situation was comically tragic.
Neither I myself nor any of my colleagues at the faculty knew anything of the ICSSR
except its name (not even its exact address). Professor V.M. Sirsikar of the
Department of Political Science of the University of Poona had been engaged in some
behavioural research programme; he was, therefore, familiar with the ICSSR. I went
to him for help. He explained me its functioning and gave me its booklet giving in
detail the format of formulating and presenting to it a research proposal. With the
booklet in hand, I felt that now the
Page: 868
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
going would be easy, but I soon found that it was not so. The booklet confused me
more as I did not know how to state my requirements specifically or how exactly to
distribute them under various headings according to the ICSSR format. For example,
what staff shall be required (research officers, investigators and typists etc.), what
shall be the distribution of funds (for typing, travelling, stationery, other materials and
the staff), and what were the details of the methods for data collection and
processing? All these were matters beyond me. I went back to Professor Sirsikar, who,
seeing my plight, not only helped me unravel the mysteries of the ICSSR research
grant format, but also kindly offered to become the joint director of the project so that
he could formally help me throughout. The draft synopsis and the application were
eventually finalised and mailed. The first step was, at last, taken.
After a fair interval, a communication arrived from the ICSSR that the draft
proposal had been accepted and that a detailed synopsis and the questionnaire to be
used (use of a questionnaire was mentioned in the draft synopsis) should be
presented for approval. Since this was to be only an exploratory study and was my
maiden project of empirical research, the number of respondents was prudently kept
within a modest manageable limit. This limit somehow was fixed at 300; this number
was divided equally among the fourteen response groups we planned to investigate.
Much later, at the time of the writing of the report, someone pointed out that the
procedure adopted for determining the total number of respondents and assigning the
particular number of respondents to each group was wholly wrong as it was arbitrary
and contrary to the first rule of sampling. I felt gravely mortified as nothing could be
done to repair the situation at that late stage. However, I was persuaded by experts in
research methodology that in an exploratory study this error could be overlooked. I am
surprised that this primary error escaped the scrutiny of the ICSSR review panel at the
formative stage of the project. Evidently, scrutiny by a review panel (whether ICSSR
or any other) does not ensure the absence of even primary errors in the planning of a
project. A researcher should, therefore, be careful on his own or take expert help to
avoid such errors.
Selection of response groups did not present much difficulty since I found that the
inclusion or exclusion of a particular group does not depend upon any set rule. Rather
it depends upon common sense guided by logic.
The formulation of questionnaire was a different experience. While preparing the
questionnaire, I started with the assumption that since I knew what information I
wanted, the formulation of the questionnaire would only mean sitting down and jotting
related questions in simple language. Having seen a few questionnaires, I thought
that the only thing to be taken care of in formulating a questionnaire was the
arrangement of questions and determining the size of the questionnaire and avoiding
Page: 869
direct questions on embarrassing or self-evaluating issues. A set of questions was

accordingly prepared. But I kept wondering about the respondent's ability and
inclination to answer them correctly. The issue irked me so much that I approached a
social science colleague for clarification. Fortunately, he happened to have specialised
in the formulation of questionnaires; he gave extensive help in rearranging the
questions and generally in modelling the questionnaire. In the process, there were
explained to me the subtleties of “open-ended” and “closed” questions, the use of the
“five point scale” for recording the response and the technique of inserting “catch
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
questions”. It became plain to me that the formulation of a questionnaire is a highly

specialised technique for which even the best of commonsense cannot be a substitute.
As stated above, I was clear in my mind about the information that I wanted from the
respondents and had prepared a set of logically sound and uncomplicated questions.
But unaided, I could never have elicited the correct information with the set of
questions that I had prepared, even if the respondents had tried to give their full and
genuine co-operation. A questionnaire prepared with the help of a trained social
scientist alone assisted me to explore and to measure correctly concepts like degree of
religiosity, extent of legal awareness or the socio-economic status of the respondents.
These matters are so subtle that it is difficult for the respondents to have a clear
perception of the questionnaire and of the right answers. The techniques that have
been developed for achieving perfection in the formulation of questionnairs and
obtaining the right information, evoke one's admiration and amazement. The
sophistication reached in the skilful art of formulation of questionnaire simply ousts
the untrained amateur. This is a fact never to be lost sight of by empirical researches
who are beginners.
To revert to my chronological narration, when the questionnaire was eventually

finalised and approved of by the ICSSR, I instantly appointed the research officer and
typist—the two positions granted under the project. The research officer was an
unexpected success, but the typist was an utter failure. This was just a matter of
chance. I had made the mistake of appointing the typist too soon, as very little typing
work is required to be done in the initial stages of the project. I had exhausted the
grant under the subhead “typist's salary” without getting much work out of the typist.
As a result, to my utter consternation, I was short of funds for typing at the stage of
writing the report. Experience taught me that instead of asking for a typist, one should
ask for a cumulative sum for typing assistance, so that one can get the work done as
and when required and pay for it piecemeal. The monthly salary of a typist allowed by
the ICSSR (for research schemes) is so ridiculously poor that no competent typist can
be available on that salary.
The next stage was selection of the respondents from each group for interview. I
had, in all, fourteen response groups for investigation: (1) Lawyers, (2) university
teachers, (3) graduate women, (4) businessmen,
Page: 870
(5) Muslims, (6) Jews, (7) Christians, (8) Parsis, (9) political leaders, (10) social
workers, (11) judicial personnel, (12) post-graduate students, (13) factory workers
and (14) peasants. As can be seen, only a few of these groups come within the
category of organised groups. Most of the groups are so unorganised that it is
impossible to ascertain the persons who belong to a particular group and their
number. For example, how was one to know who and how many are social workers in
Pune? In the case of several response groups, there was no ready list of members of
the group. In this connection, I gathered information about the techniques of area
sampling, cluster sampling and the like. Most interesting was the method which I was
told to adopt, and did adopt, in the case of social workers. I made enquiries of about
twenty persons from different social strata in Pune for preparing list of thirty persons
whom they considered as social workers. Names common to all the lists were taken as
the base from which to select the respondents. I regard it as an ingenious, simple and
sound method. The selection of respondents was completed without much difficulty.
Now began the interviews. I was extremely fortunate in getting a very intelligent,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
conscientious and hard-working research officer-cum-investiga-tor. She also had

previous experience of the job. I wonder what would have been the fate of my
research project if I had not a conscientious investigator. I would have worked with
very unreliable data. The most important part in research is the data, and in case of
empirical research the data can be most unreliable if the investigator is incompetent.
The bigger the research project, the higher are the chances of getting defective data
because the size of the team of investigators then increases proportionately, thereby
opening up scope for weak links in the team. I know of reliability tests devised for
measuring the degree of authenticity of a questionnaire but I have not been informed
of any similar tests developed for verifying the authenticity of data. Empirical
researchers in the social sciences do not feel unduly worried over the issue; rather
they accept it as one of the occupational hazards. However, I have yet to cultivate
such a complacence. In legal research writing, we are obsessed with copious
footnoting and correct citations; these help the ascertainability of the materials used.
We, therefore, feel diffident where the authenticity of the data cannot be verified.
The conducting of interviews also presented some problems, but none were
insurmountable. The one lesson which I learnt was that the types and problems of
interviewing are unpredictable and there can be no set formula for tackling them. For
example, this particular project was being operated during the period of emergency in
the country. Most political leaders were then in prison. The question was, how to
ascertain their views. Two choices were open before me—one, to delete this response
group from the project, and two, to interview them somehow. I decided upon the
latter course and applied to the prison superintendent for permission to meet the
respondents in the prison. Upon refusal,
Page: 871
I mailed the questionnaire to them at the prison address. Care had been taken to
clarify, in a letter accompanyingeach questionnaire, that the enquiry was meant purely
for academic purpose and that the project had the sanction of the government (which
was not wholly wrong as the project was sponsored by the ICSSR and, because of the
emergency, the questionnaire also had been sent to the local commissioner of police
for clearance before sending to the press). I was happy to find that every
questionnaire had been answered and returned.
Collection of data in this project did not create any problem. However, my limited
range of experience with empirical research (in cases of projects undertaken by me
and my research students) shows that the collection of data from documentary
sources is extremely difficult in India. Access to, and availability of, records in
government or private offices, institutions and libraries is next to impossible in our
country. A few instances would suffice to make the point. A Ph.D. student working on
the project “Adulteration of Food, Drugs and Cosmetics in the State of Maharashtra”
was refused access to the relevant records by the commissioner in charge. The records
desired to be consulted contained information about the number of adulteration cases
instituted, tried, proved and not proved, and about the kind of sanction that followed
where the fact of adulteration was held as established. The reason given for the refusal
was that the concerned records were confidential documents. In another instance, a
group of eight to ten LL.M. students was refused permission to go through the past
judgments at the court of a district judge for studying the socio-economic and
educational background of the accused and the type of offences usually brought for
trial. The reason obstensibly given by the district judge was that there was lack of
space in the court for the investigators to sit and work. In fact, the clerk-in-charge of
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the record room was reluctant to take the trouble of fetching and returning the files
from and to the shelves. In a third instance, the project was concerned with legal
history. A perusal of the judgments of the Sadar Dewani Adalat, Sadar Nizamat Adalat
and Supreme Court of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency was necessary. The High Court
of Bombay was accordingly contacted (as the successor to these three courts).
Surprisingly, the court could not trace any of these old records. So much for the
maintenance of our old and rare records.
To cite yet another instance in connection with a research scheme to study the use
of the power of executive pardon in case of the death sentence, repeated and
persistent correspondence with the High Court and the home secretary of each state
was undertaken, but it was not possible to locate the office which could supply the
related records. Most state governments did not reply at all; those that were courteous
enough to reply were not sure where the related files might be available. The High
Courts stated that these were with the home departments, whereas the
Page: 872
latter believed the same to be with the former. Upon meeting the home department
personnel of a couple of states, it was found that due to lack of proper maintenance of
records, it was very difficult to locate files for a couple of years, which related to the
use of executive pardon or any other matter.
Private institutions are no better in this respect. A social work organisation

arranging for the adoption of children refused to disclose the names of the adopting
parties to a Ph.D. scholar who was working on “Socio-Legal Aspects of the Law of
Adoption in India”. The refusal was made on the ground of confidentiality. Details
about an adopted child can understandably be confidential, but it is not clear what
purpose can it serve to maintain secrecy about the adopting party. An American lady
lawyer, working on “University Litigation in India”, wandered from university to
university in the country only to find that record of such litigation was not available
because it was not maintained at most universities. For all the effort made, the poor
lady got particulars of only stray incidents of university litigation. National and state
archives in the country are so poorly staffed and, therefore, so miserably organised
that it is impossible to locate and obtain data from these archives. Hospitals and
prisons have their own rules of ethics and convenience for not permitting access to
their records. Procedural technicalities are also a formidable hurdle. For example, an
attempt to work on the unreported decisions of the Supreme Court or of a High Court
in the country would prove to be a very arduous and discouraging task. The
researcher's patience would be put to severe test because of the formalities that he
must complete for reaching these records. It would still remain a matter of chance
whether he will be able to locate the records he requires. The reason is that all High
Courts do not have the staff or space facility needed for maintaining them
methodically.
In short, the unmethodical maintenance of records, wrong notions of confidentiality,
non-cooperative attitude of persons in charge of records and antequated procedures
combine to obstruct the collection of data from recorded materials in India. A foreign
research scholar aptly remarked that public documents in India are zealously and
proprietorially guarded by the office bearers, a research scholar cannot claim the right
of easement over them. The above comments have been offered only by way of
caution for the would-be-researchers. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
However, for the lawyer researcher engaged in empirical research, the really serious
trouble begins after the collection of data. Legal academics are used to an entirely
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
different kind of data, and they just do not know how to handle the bulk of empirical
facts. The lawyer-researcher is habituated to the pile of case law, string of statutory
laws, rules and executive orders, and mass of legal writings. These he can, by training
or experience, arrange and analyse; but he is at a loss when faced
Page: 873
with the raw material of bare facts. The two sets of materials are qualitatively and
quantitatively different. In the first place, legal materials-judicial, legislative,
executive documents and writings—have a prima facie inherent coherence and
similarity of direction which is not so apparent in the case of data collected empirically.
Secondly, legal data, unless it is an encyclopaedic work, do not run into such a large
bulk as empirical data usually tend to. This large bulk of material comes in a form that
is apparently not correlated. Arranging into a shape that will establish the interrelation
among the facts inter se alongwith their interrelationship with laws, in various
combinations and at different levels, is a specialised task Special methods, formulae
and technical tools have been developed for accomplishing this task. It is sheer
inexperience to believe that these special mechanisms can be picked up casually; on
the contrary, these have to be acquired through regular instruction.
Selection of the methods, formulae and tools for data analysis is as important as
the selection of the research method at the beginning of the project. However, for
choosing the appropriate mechanism for data analysis, one must have at least a first
level acquaintance with the different mechanisms available from which the choice is to
be made. One must either be personally knowledgeable or procure expert assistance
before starting analysis of data.
The use of computers is increasingly becoming a common modality for data
processing. Undoubtedly, it is an extremely helpful method for calculating and
formulating tables and cross-tables, particularly in the case of large scale data. But the
use of computers is very expensive and computer programming (preparation and
planning for feeding data into the computer) is a specialised job for which experts are
not available as a matter of course to researchers in India. For instance, the
elementary exercise of transferring the data to computer cards can become trying,
simply because the facility of card punching is not necessarily available or not easily
accessible in our educational and research set up. Unless one is attached to a research
centre which is adequately equipped, the nonavailability of facilities and skills in this
area (data computerisation) can cause undue delay in the work. Computer service
itself is not too easily available except in very big cities. In view of these limitations, it
is advisable to go in for hand tabulation rather than rely on the computer unless the
data is vast. Incidentally, it may be helpful to mention that usually the researcher is
tempted to get much more information (tables and cross-tables) than he can possibly
use. The fact that each additional table means extra expense, should not be lost sight
of.
Finally, while preparing the research report, a typical defect likely to occur is that
the entire endeavour may result into a “factology exercise” than research—legal or
socio-legal. To avoid such a consequence, it is necessary for the researcher to possess
a thorough knowledge of the legal
Page: 874
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and also other aspects of the problem under study. This helps provide depth in
viewing the facts. Also, in order to go beyond the facts and to accomplish the goal of
the enquiry, it is esential that the researcher should be informed of the theories of
sociology of law and of societal action. Without this knowledge and information,
empirical research in law will tend to remain substandard.
It may not be presumptuous on my part to feel that the narrative of my

experiments and experiences with empirical research is, in a sense, the narrative of
empirical research in law in India. The idea of empirical research in law in India was
initially rejected but later it was tentatively accepted. However, now it has been
accorded full recognition. But the lawyer-researcher lacks the skills requisite for the
use of empirical research. It might be added that though the empirical method can be
very useful in legal research, it cannot substitute the doctrinaire approach. It can
supplement but not supplant the other.
———
* Professor, Post-graduate Dapertment of Law, Poona University, Pune.
Disclaimer: While every effort is made to avoid any mistake or omission, this casenote/ headnote/ judgment/ act/ rule/ regulation/ circular/
notification is being circulated on the condition and understanding that the publisher would not be liable in any manner by reason of any mistake
or omission or for any action taken or omitted to be taken or advice rendered or accepted on the basis of this casenote/ headnote/ judgment/ act/
rule/ regulation/ circular/ notification. All disputes will be subject exclusively to jurisdiction of courts, tribunals and forums at Lucknow only. The
authenticity of this text must be verified from the original source.

Experiments of A Law Teacher in Empirical Research

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Experiments of A Law Teacher in Empirical Research

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

SCC Online Web Edition, © 2023 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd.

Page 1 Tuesday, February 28, 2023

24 JILI (1982) 863

Experiments of A Law Teacher in Empirical Research

EXPERIMENTS OF A LAW TEACHER IN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

with teachers of sociology because interdisciplinary interaction was totally unknown in

direct questions on embarrassing or self-evaluating issues. A set of questions was

questions”. It became plain to me that the formulation of a questionnaire is a highly

To revert to my chronological narration, when the questionnaire was eventually

conscientious and hard-working research officer-cum-investiga-tor. She also had

Private institutions are no better in this respect. A social work organisation

It may not be presumptuous on my part to feel that the narrative of my

You might also like