Friday 2 March 2007 at 13:00
Oxford Legal History Forum
Statutory Theory and Judicial Practice in the Contract Law of Colonial India (1781-1862) : A Re-Appraisal
Speaker: Stelios Tofaris, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Venue: Oxford Law Faculty Room 5
Abstract: The present paper revisits the colonial setting of the presidency towns of British India in an effort to unearth the prevailing conditions in the area of contract law in the century before its codification. More specifically, it delineates the doctrinal anatomy of the law applied to contractual disputes among the native population in the British-run courts and compares this to the statutory model of the applicable legal sources set down by the British Parliament in 1781. Finding a wide gulf between statutory theory and judicial practice, the paper draws on various traditions of legal historiography to construct an intellectual framework for analyzing the complex factors lying behind the particular configuration. In doing so, it anchors the doctrinal mosaic to its colonial and historical context outside which it cannot be accurately understood. Stelios Tofaris is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, and Fellow-elect at Girton College, Cambridge. His research focuses on the development of contract law in British India in the period between 1772 and 1905.
For more information please contact: Henry Mares
Organised by the Oxford Legal History Forum
