Codification Law Lectures, India Codification in India (Classic Reprint)

An attempt has been made in the following pages to point out the great and growing importance of the subject which is not, as supposed in some quarters, merely dry and academic, useful to Jurists and Legislators only. Viewed aright it is interesting and of practical importance to the practising lawyer, the student of history, as well as to the public in general. True, the enumeration of the different enactments in their chronological order forms a part, a minor part of the subject, but this is not the whole subject ;it does not exhaust the subject ;it is not even the whole history of codification in this country. Codification is a branch of legislation, and law cannot be properly understood apart from the history and spirit of the nation whose law it is, and hence it has been necessary to deal to a certain extent with the legal and constitutional history of I ndia. Questions relating to the genesis, essence, principle, form and interpretation of the British Indian Codes have been the subject-matter of discussion in a good many reported cases and are of the utmost importance to practising lawyers. In this connection reference may be made to the case of Secretary of State for India v. Moment (1912) 40 I. A. 48, 53 where it has been held that the Government of India can not by legislation take away the right to proceed against it in a Civil Court in a case involving a right over land, and that any A ct which takes away such a right is ultra vires. Besides these important questions there is the question of the feasibility of further codification in this country. The answer to this question depends on the answer to another question, viz. whether the present A nglo-I ndian Codes have been a success. It has been stated on high authority that they have been triumphantly successful ;but they cannot be, and are not, perfect, nor exhaustive. It should be noted also tha
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