3 Indian Legal System

3.1 Concept and Sources of Indian LawIndia — the world's largest common-law jurisdiction with the deepest layered inheritance:1. The pre-colonial strata: the Hindu and Muslim personal-law systems (Unit 5); the East India Company's early charters; the Anglo-Hindu and Anglo-Muhammadan law's construction (the pandits' and maulvis' advice to English judges — the personal law's case-lawification);2. The colonial common law (1726/1774–1947): the Mayor's/Supreme Courts, then the High Courts (1862); the Indian Councils' codification (the first — Macaulay's Penal Code 1860 (the IPC — the codification miracle: the common law's case-method producing a code! — replaced in 2023 by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, effective 1 July 2024), the Contract Act 1872, the Evidence Act 1872 (now the 2023 replacements), the CPC 1908, the CrPC 1973 (now the BNSS 2023), the Transfer of Property Act 1882, the Trusts Act 1882) — India as the codified common law: the statute-plus-precedent double structure;3. The constitutional era (1950–): the Constitution of India (26 January 1950 — the world's longest; the fundamental rights + directive principles' architecture; the quasi-federal union; the constitutional amendments' century (the 42nd's Emergency-era wounds; the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973) — the basic structure doctrine: Parliament's amendment power barredfrom destroying the constitution's identity — world constitutional law's most-cited Indian gift); the personal-law codes' reform (the Hindu Code Acts 1955–56; the Muslim law's Anglo- statutory regime;…