Revisiting the Non-Monumental Heritage of Colonial India: Judicial Administration vis-à-vis Quest for Justice

Parna Mukherjee

Colonial India’s history consists of both Monumental and Non-monumental heritage. The early settlements in presidency towns, forts, archives, and historical sites constitute the monumental and tangible heritage, whereas the narratives of justice, judicial administration, and the plethora of cases adjudicated during the colonial period constitute the non-monumental or intangible heritage. These judicial cases narrate facets of the local natives' life experiences, struggles, and quest for justice under British administration. In this historical backdrop, this paper aims to revisit the mechanism of colonial administration of justice and critically analyse the various dimensions of the contemporary legal system. The colonisation process also retrofitted the British Common Law System in India, positioning judicial administration as one of the prime objectives of colonial rule. The author aims to explore the classical judicial cases adjudicated by the colonial rulers and examine their outcomes in light of Rawls's Theory of Justice. In India, the East India Company also established a hierarchy of courts for different subject matters, with extended territorial jurisdiction, and also laid down substantive and procedural laws; however, the moot question remains whether these efforts served the real purpose of justice. This paper presents a few contemporary cases from different early settlements in colonial India as analytical illustrations to examine the efficacy of judicial administration. The collateral objective is to determine whether cases adjudicated under the colonial justice system in India qualify as part of the Theory of Precedent.