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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Under British rule, the indian legal profession was alone in offering to the talented an opportunity of gaining both wealth and prestige, and its lure to the young was equalled only by the Indian Civil Service. But the foundations upon which the profession's preeminence was based have now eroded. Rent suits, the principal source of its rural income, have all but disappeared. In 1935, of the 224,709 civil suits instituted in the courts of what is now the state of Bihar, 80% were rent suits, by 1962 the number of civil suits instituted in the courts had dropped to 43,978, and only 5% of these were rent suits. The departure of the British opened new, competing, career alternatives, and a widening net of education undercut the advantages of wealth, family and caste. New social conditions have not only required the advocate to rely upon different sources for his legal income—they have begun to transform the nature of the profession itself. There has been a steep decline in the relative prestige it once enjoyed.
Author's Note: Research for this study was undertaken in Bihar in 1965-1966 while the author held an American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship. The study is a part of an inquiry into the Bihar Judicial Service and the administration of justice in the lower courts of Bihar. Some of the data supporting the paper were obtained through questionnaires distributed to law college students in Bihar. The questionnaire and a note on its distribution may be found in Appendix I.
1. Government of Bihar, Report on the Administration of Civil Justice in the Province of Bihar and Orissa in 1935 (1936) and Government of Bihar, Report on the Administration of Civil Justice in the State of Bihar in 1962, at table 3 (1966).
2. Bhagalpur University (law college in Bhagalpur) ; Magadh University (law colleges in Patna, Gaya and Arrah); Ranchi University (law college in Ranchi); Bihar University (law colleges in Chapra, Darbhanga, Motihari and Muzaffarpur).
3. Statistics given in official publications are often incomplete; figures published in different official publications and which purport to give the same information may vary widely (cf. Government of India, Education in the States 1960-61, at table IV (1965) and National Institute of Education of the National Council of Educational Research and Training, The Indian Year Book of Education 1961, at tables 34-40 [1965]).
4. Government of India, Education in India, A Graphic Presentation 44 (1966); Education in the States 1960-61, at table VI (1965); National Institute of Education, supra note 3, at tables 38, 40, 41.
5. K. K. Bhavnani, Legal Education in India, 4 J. of the Indian L. Institute 167-90 (1962); R. Braibanti, Legal Research, in Research on the Bureaucracy of Pakistan (1966); K. N. Katju, Legal Profession and Legal Education, All India Rptr. 132-33 (1965); Academic Council Committee on the Teaching of Law in the Patna University, Report of the Academic Council Committee, 41 Patna L. College J. 9-39 (1965); and A. T. von Mehren, Law and Legal Education in India: Some Observations, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 1180-89 (1965).
6. A curriculum of study typical of all the Bihar law colleges is set out in Appendix II.
7. The All India Reporter (Nagpur: 1914-present) is the most popular set of law reports. It includes both Supreme Court cases and cases decided by all the High Courts of the Indian states, and from time to time publishes official notices of interest to the legal profession, acts of Parliament, short articles and book reviews.
8. E.g., K. Subba Rao, Address to the Gujarat State Lawyers' Conference, in Chief Justice K. Subba Rao, Defender of Liberties 74 (V. D. Mahajan 1967).
9. Bar Council of India, Resolution 2/1966 Standards of Legal Education and Recognition of Degrees of Law for Admission as Advocate, All India Rptr. J. 35-36 (1966).
10. Academic Council Committee, supra, note 5.
11. Bihar is generally regarded as the state with the lowest per capita income in India. In 1967, it was ranked fourteenth out of fourteen for the years 1950-1951, 1955-1956, and 1960-1961 by the National Council of Applied Economic Research. In 1960-1961 Bihar's per capita income in 1960-1961 prices was listed as Rs222 per month, India's as Rs336, National Council of Applied Economic Research, Estimates of State Income, table 5 (1967).
12. Each candidate for the judicial service was required to obtain a certificate of approval from the district judge of his district. The district judge then forwarded this certificate and other data concerning the candidate, including his religion and caste, to the High Court. The High Court selected certain of the candidates for an interview and then chose those whom it wished to appoint. This procedure was changed in 1938. The data presented here are taken from files in the Patna High Court, Administration Department. In 1935 Bihar and Orissa were joined in one province; the candidates from Orissa districts have been excluded.
13. 4 Census of India, 1961 pt. II-B (ii), General Economic Tables—Bihar, table B-V (1965).
14. J. A. Davis, Undergraduate Career Decisions appendix I (1965).
15. N. Rogoff, Recent Trends in Occupational Mobility, 1950 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univ. of Chicago, cited in S. Warkov & J. Zelan, Lawyers in the Making [1965]).
16. Warkov & Zelan, supra note 14, at 43-44.
17. In the age group of 35 and above, 70% of the males in Bihar are illiterate and 96% of the females (4 Census of India, 1961, pt. II-C, Social and Cultural Tables—Bihar, Table C-III, pt. A [1965]).
18. Government of India, Fourteenth Report of the Union Public Service Commission 1963-64 (1964); Government of India, Fifteenth Report of the Union Public Service Commission 1964-65 (1965); Government of India, Sixteenth Report of the Union Public Service Commission 1965-66 (1966), at appendix VII-A.
19. Proposals made by the Education Commission, though not made with regard to law colleges or with regard to provincial centers of education, look in a similar direction. The Commission recommended that six or seven universities in India be designated as “major” and that they be rapidly developed as elite centers of education (Government of India, Report of the Education Commission 1964-66, at 279-284 [1966]).
20. The Legal Education Committee's “Rules” had not been implemented up to December 1967 (account of All India Bar Council Meeting in Patna in December, 1967, The Searchlight [Patna], Dec. 25, 1967).
