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Unit 4: Reforms of Cornwallis

Notes

What do you mean by Cornwallis code?

Observations on Judicial Reforms: The judicial system set up by Cornwallis was based on the principle
of equity and Western conception of justice. Codified secular law took the place of the religious law
or personal law of the ruler or his local agent. The sovereignty of law was proclaimed in unmistakable
terms. Even Government officials, for acts done by them in their official capacities, could be tried in
the courts. However, in its immediate effects the Cornwallis Code produced many undesirable effect.
The novel, unfamiliar and elaborate code was so complicated that the common man could not profit
by it. Justice proved very expensive and gave opportunities to a man of means to wear out the
uneducated and the poor man. False witnesses were produced. Falsehood, chicanery and deceit began
to yield dividends. Litigation greatly increased. Law courts proved insufficient and could not cope
with the increased work resulting in great delay in the disposal of justice. Above all, the traditional
judicial functionaries like the Panchayats, Zamindars, the Qazi, the Faujdar, the Nazim etc. were
replaced by European judges ignorant of the customs and habits of Indians.

In 1817, Munro commented that nine-tenths of the European judges knew as little of
India as if they had never left Great Britain.

Judicial Reorganization: The English Indian Company acquired territories in India through various
processes. The island of Bombay was obtained through cession in full sovereignty from the British
Crown in 1868. On the Coromandal coast, the English Company acquired Madras and adjoining
territories granted to it permanently and irrevocably by the nawab of Carnatic. In Bengal, the situation
was very complex because of the Dual authority of the diwani system. Emperor Shah Alam II’s firman
granted to the Company in 1765 the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. As such, the Company was
responsible for the Diwani functions only which included administration of civil justice also. The
nawab of Bengal exercised the Nizamat functions which meant maintenance of law and order and
administration of criminal justice.
The laws made for Bombay provided for religious toleration, trial by jury and the establishment of a
Court of Judication. In 1718, the jury system was abolished and the appeals were to be made to the
Governor and Council and the judges included a Hindu, a Muslim, a Parsi, a Portuguese and the
Company’s employees. In 1726, the Court of Directors sought the permission of the king of England
to establish Mayor’s Court; consequently three Mayor’s Courts composed in each case of the Mayor
and nine aldermen were established at Fort William (Calcutta), Madras and Bombay for trial of disputes
between employees within these town and the dependent factories.
In the early stages of British conquest of India, the Company’s authorities found not a unified but a
diverse judicial system, Hindu and Muslim, operating in different parts of the country. Broadly
speaking in pre-British India, the judicial set-up was a mix of Hindu law of the Shastras and Muslim
Koranic law supplemented by customary law supported by the rulling power. The European merchant
companies which established their factories and plantations in India could not easily accept the Muslim
criminal law which provided for the amputation of limbs of the body or stoning of criminals as
penalties; nor could they accept the principle that the evidence of an infidel (kafir) could not be
recognised against a Mohammadan (the faithful) or that there should be a privileged law for the
Brahmin alone. With the rise of national states in Europe, the concept of territoral and public law had
developed in European national states. The European merchants companies had to apply a uniform
legal system in the territories under their control. It was Warren Hastings who organised a rudimentary
framework of the judicial system by setting up Diwani and Faujdari Adalats at the district level;
appeals from these adalats could be made to the Sadar Diwani Adalat and Sadar Nizamat Adalat at
Calcutta. However, it was Lord Cornwallis who improved and elaborated the system by setting up

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