01The starting date: 31 December 1600
Modern Indian constitutionalism has a fixed starting date and a single founding document. The date is 31 December 1600. The document is the charter Queen Elizabeth I granted that day to a group of London merchants who wanted to trade in the East Indies. Their company became the English East India Company.
A charter was a particular kind of document. It was a grant made for ever, written in Latin, addressed to a named group, and kept on record so that it could be produced later. What it granted was a set of powers.
02The charter's two other powers: law-making and justice
Everyone remembers the permission to trade. Two other things sat inside the same document. The charter delegated law-making power and judicial power to the governor the Company appointed in India, for the advancement of the trade. That judicial power covered criminal law.
Where did a body of merchants get the right to try and punish people? The answer lies in what the Company was set up to do. It was formed for trade by sea rather than for governing territory, and much of the authority its officers used was borrowed from the absolute discipline of naval service and of martial law. That included a power to issue emergency regulations.
As the Company's territorial control grew, new charters granted it full territorial jurisdiction: the power to issue coinage, to administer justice, and to punish interlopers who traded without its licence.
The charters also carried a limit. Every law the Company made had to be reasonable, and none could go against English law or English custom. Lawyers call this the principle of repugnancy. The grant of power and the limit on it sat in the same documents.
With reference to the Charter of 1600 and the charters that followed it, consider the following statements:
- The Charter of 1600 gave the Company permission to trade but no power to make laws.
- The Charter delegated judicial power to the Company's governor, and that power extended to criminal law.
- Laws made by the Company under the charters had to be reasonable and could not conflict with the laws of England.
How many of the statements given above are correct?
B, only two. Statements 2 and 3 are correct. Statement 1 is wrong: the 1600 charter delegated legislative as well as judicial power to the Company's governor.
Marking "Only one" tempts if you accept the criminal-law point but doubt that repugnancy belongs to the charter period at all. It is in the charters themselves.
Marking "All three" tempts because statement 1 reads like the textbook summary of a trading company. The permission to trade is true; the second half, no power to make laws, is what makes the statement false. Read each statement to its last word.
Marking "None" tempts only if you think the Company's powers came later, with the Regulating Act. They were delegated in 1600.
03The charter's jurisdiction, and who used the courts
The charter was clear on paper: the Company could use its courts only for English subjects. It did not give the Company a general right to judge Indians. That is what the charter said.
But the courts worked differently from the beginning. Indian litigants brought claims before the Company almost as soon as its courts began functioning. The written rule and the actual practice did not remain the same for long. Through the seventeenth century, Parliament, the Crown and the Company each pushed for more control, English subjects disputed the Company's authority in court, and Indian litigants used English law to press their own claims.
At first the people living in Company territory had few options. In civil and criminal matters alike the Company did much as it pleased. No procedural rules held it in check, and nobody could carry a case on appeal to London's Privy Council. This mattered because settlers in the American colonies could appeal to the Privy Council. A resident of Madras could not. If the Company court decided against that person, the Company was effectively the last word.
With reference to the position before the Charter of 1726, consider the following statements:
- The early charters gave the Company jurisdiction over the Indian population living in its settlements.
- Residents of the Company's settlements could appeal from its courts to the Privy Council in London.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
D, neither. The charter's jurisdiction was over English subjects only, and there was no appeal to the Privy Council until the Charter of 1726 provided for one.
Marking "1 only" tempts because Indians did appear before Company courts. They came as claimants using English law. The statement is about what the charter gave, and it gave jurisdiction over English subjects.
Marking "2 only" tempts because appeals to the Privy Council are a fixture of later colonial India. They arrive in 1726. Before that, the American colonies had them and Company India did not.
Marking "Both" tempts if you read the whole colonial period backwards into 1600. Both features are later.
04A new constitution for the Company, 1726
Parliament was becoming worried about the Company's growing power. It was also uneasy about how closely the Company was tied to the monarchy. Parliament therefore looked for ways to bring the Company's independent legal authority under closer control. Early in the eighteenth century, it forced a new constitution on the Company.
The Charter of 1726 changed the legal system in the three presidency towns: Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. It gave English law and institutions a larger role in the settlements. Its main provisions were:
- English law was to be the law of the settlements, as far as local circumstances allowed.
- Mayor's courts were created, each under aldermen holding office for life. Life tenure gave the courts a degree of independence.
- Appeals from those courts went to the Privy Council. This is the point at which the remedy the American colonies had reached India.
- The courts were told to decide by "justice and right", a phrase the charter itself used.
The Company's governors also received legislative powers of the kind royal governors held in America. Those powers came with two strings: the directors in London had to approve, and repugnancy applied, so nothing could cut against English law.
More and more people brought suits against the Company in the Company's own courts. That was important. By the late seventeenth century, people across British territories had begun to see a charter as more than permission given by the Crown. It set out the government's powers, but it also placed limits on them. Once a Governor claimed authority from a charter, someone could use the same charter to challenge him.
| Before 1726 | After 1726 | |
|---|---|---|
| Law applied | Company's free hand in civil and criminal matters | English law, as far as local circumstances allowed |
| Courts | Company justice, no procedural rules | Mayor's courts under aldermen with life tenure |
| Appeal | None to the Privy Council | Expressly provided, to the Privy Council |
| Governor's law-making | Delegated by charter, subject to repugnancy | Subject to the directors' approval and to repugnancy |
With reference to the Charter of 1726, consider the following statements:
- It declared that English law was to apply in the Company's settlements, as far as circumstances allowed.
- It created mayor's courts, each under aldermen holding office for life.
- It provided for appeals from the mayor's courts to the Privy Council.
How many of the statements given above are correct?
C, all three. Each is a provision of the 1726 charter.
Marking "Only two" tempts in two ways. Some doubt life tenure for aldermen, because "Company court" sounds like "Company's men". Others doubt the Privy Council appeal, because appeals feel like a Crown-rule feature. Both are 1726.
Marking "Only one" tempts if you take only the English-law clause as safe and treat the institutional detail as guesswork. The detail is in the charter.
Marking "None" tempts only if you place all of this in 1773. The Regulating Act is a different document, and it comes next lesson.
05Courts beyond the Company's control
Having got its courts, the Company found it could not manage them. Neither its officials in India nor its directors in London held any power to reverse a judgment or to alter how the courts worked. Distance also played its part. A mayor's court in a presidency town had usually given its verdict long before any legal opinion sent from London arrived.
There was a second reason. An ordinary Company official was bound by contract to obey the directors. Judicial officials were not, and in particular the members of grand juries were not. Those juries were not all English: at times Parsi, Hindu and Indo-Portuguese townspeople sat on them. They protested when the Governor departed from the charter's own rules and procedures. In Calcutta the grand jury repeatedly set free prisoners whom the Governor was holding without trial, and told him in sharp terms that he had broken the charter.
At the time, people described these episodes as English law and liberty standing up to the Company's authority. The real motive was narrower: the courts were protecting their own standing and freedom of action, not applying English law strictly.
Assertion (A): After 1726, the Company's own courts and grand juries in India repeatedly acted against the Governor.
Reason (R): The aldermen held office for life, and judicial officials and grand jurors, unlike other Company servants, were under no contractual duty to obey the directors.
A is right. The Calcutta grand jury's releases of prisoners held without trial are the clearest example of A, and R is the explanation: life tenure for the aldermen, and judicial officials and jurors outside the contractual obedience that bound other Company servants.
B tempts if you think distance explains it. Distance was a separate factor, one that made the courts' verdicts arrive before London's advice. Why the courts could act against the Governor at all is answered by R.
C tempts if "Company court" makes you assume the judges were Company servants under contract. The aldermen and jurors were the exception to that rule.
D tempts if you doubt that the courts really did act against the Governor. The Calcutta grand jury's releases of prisoners held without trial are the clearest example.
06Litigants built the constitutional order
The charter existed, but no one imposed a constitutional order on the Company from above. Parliament did not make the Company's administration follow the new principles in day-to-day working, and neither did the Privy Council. The order grew from litigants: the people who brought cases, and so decided which issues actually got argued and settled.
Remember this for the exam: the order was not simply handed down from Parliament in London to India. It was built case by case, in the courts. The clearest example is a grand jury in Calcutta citing a printed charter against the Governor.
According to the account in this lesson, where did the impetus towards a constitutional order in Company India mainly come from?
A is right. Parliament and the Privy Council both stayed out; the order grew from litigants, who decided what was fought over.
B tempts because Parliament did force a new constitution on the Company early in the eighteenth century. That settled the instrument. The question is who made it bite day to day, and the answer is the people who sued under it.
C tempts because the Privy Council sat at the top of the appeal chain after 1726. The Council did not try to impose the new principles on the administration.
D tempts because approval by the directors was a real check on the governors' law-making. It was a check on legislation. The constitutional order sat elsewhere: in litigation.
07Plassey and the Diwani
Plassey, the English victory of 1757, was the first serious blow to this order. When the Company then received the Diwani over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, it found its power resting on two sources at once: the British Crown's charter, and its own position as the Mughal emperor's vassal.
The military victories that followed turned a cluster of cities and trading factories into a large landed power, and they coincided with money troubles in London. That handed Parliament its chance to remake the Company's government in India. It took the opening in 1773, and that is Lesson 2.
Arrange the following in the correct chronological order:
- The charter that first provided for appeals from the Company's courts to the Privy Council
- The Company receives the Diwani over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa
- The battle of Plassey
- The first charter to the London merchants trading with the East Indies
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
C is right. 1600 (first charter), 1726 (Privy Council appeals), 1757 (Plassey), then the Diwani, which followed the military victories.
A tempts if you put the Diwani before Plassey. The actual order is the reverse: Plassey was the disruption, and the Diwani came with the victories that followed.
D tempts if you place the Privy Council appeal after Plassey, as a response to the Company's new power. It came in 1726, thirty-one years earlier.
B tempts only if you have the 1600 and 1726 charters the wrong way round. The first grant came first; the appeal was a later addition.
08What to carry into Lesson 2
- Indian constitutionalism has a fixed starting date and a written text: 31 December 1600.
- The 1600 charter delegated law-making and judicial power, criminal law included, to the Company's governor. The powers had naval and martial origins.
- The charters limited the Company's law-making through repugnancy: reasonable, and never against English law.
- Jurisdiction ran over English subjects only. Indians came to the courts anyway, as claimants.
- 1726: English law, mayor's courts with life-tenured aldermen, appeals to the Privy Council, governors' law-making subject to the directors and to repugnancy.
- The Company could not control its courts. Grand juries, some with Indian members, held the Governor to the charter.
- The constitutional order came from litigants. Parliament and the Privy Council did not impose it.
- Plassey and the Diwani gave the Company two sources of authority and made it a landed power. Parliament's opening followed.
Recall · Close the page and answer
- Date and grantor of the first charter.
Check
31 December 1600. Queen Elizabeth I, to the London merchants who traded to the East Indies.
- Besides permission to trade, which two powers did the 1600 charter delegate, and to whom?
Check
Legislative and judicial power, criminal law included, to the Company's appointed governor.
- State the principle of repugnancy in one line.
Check
Company law had to be reasonable, and could not go against English law or custom.
- Name three provisions of the Charter of 1726.
Check
Any three of: English law in the settlements as far as circumstances allowed; mayor's courts under aldermen with life tenure; appeals to the Privy Council; decisions by "justice and right"; governors' law-making subject to the directors and to repugnancy.
- After the Diwani, the Company's power rested on which two sources of authority?
Check
The British Crown's charter, and its vassalage to the Mughal emperor.
Mains practice · GS Paper II
Three questions, with answer frames
Write the answer first. Then open the frame and check what you left out.
10 marks · 150 words"The Charter of 1600 was a trade licence with a constitution folded inside it." Explain.
Open with the fact: a dated, written document, 31 December 1600, granted by Elizabeth I to the London merchants who traded to the East Indies.
The two folded powers: legislative and judicial power delegated to the Company's governor, including criminal law.
Their origin: a trading body formed for the sea, borrowing the absolute discipline of naval service and of martial law, emergency regulation included.
Their growth: later charters granting full territorial jurisdiction, coinage, justice, punishment of interlopers.
The limit: repugnancy. Company law under the charters had to be reasonable and could not cut against English law. Grant of power and boundary on it, together.
Close: the charter's reach was English subjects only. Even so, this dated, written grant of delegated and limited power is the point where modern Indian constitutionalism begins.
15 marks · 250 words"In Company India the constitutional order was built from below, by those who litigated, rather than imposed from London." Examine this view with reference to the period from 1600 to the working of the Charter of 1726.
State the view: Parliament and the Privy Council both left the Company's administration alone; the order grew out of litigation, and litigants chose what was fought over.
Evidence for it, before 1726: the charter covered English subjects only, yet Indian litigants used English law and its rhetoric from early on; conflicts among Parliament, Crown and Company produced an imperial legal culture rather than a designed one.
Evidence for it, in the working of the courts: the rise in suits against the Company before its own judges, evidence of a belief that the printed charter was origin and boundary of authority; the Company unable to overturn decisions; grand juries (some with Parsi, Hindu and Indo-Portuguese members) releasing prisoners held without trial and rebuking the Governor; courts defending their own independence.
The counter-case, fairly put: 1726 itself came from above. Parliament, worried about a Company too close to the Crown, forced a new constitution on it, with English law, mayor's courts and Privy Council appeals. Without that instrument there would have been nothing for litigants to quote.
Resolve: the text came from above. The working order, the sense that power had an origin and a boundary, came from below. The view holds for the order.
10 marks · 150 wordsHow did Plassey and the grant of the Diwani open the way for Parliament to intervene in the East India Company's government of India?
The order they disrupted: a charter regime for a trading company holding cities and factories, with delegated powers limited by repugnancy and, after 1726, English law and Privy Council appeals.
The disruption: Plassey (1757), then the Diwani over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Company's powers now had two roots: the Crown's charter and its vassalage to the Mughal emperor.
What changed on the ground: the victories that followed turned a cluster of cities and factories into a large landed power.
What changed in London: those successes coincided with fiscal trouble at home, and handed Parliament its chance to remake the Company's government, in the name of curbing abuses in administration.
Close: the resolution had to come from Parliament, and the Regulating Act of 1773 is the first attempt. Name it; do not narrate it here.
PYQ corner
What UPSC has actually asked
The past questions we found on this stretch of history concern the Charter Acts of 1813 and 1833, which come later in the same line. This lesson only touches on those Acts briefly; their full treatment is Lesson 2. The three questions are here so you see the shape of what gets asked.
By which one of the following Acts was the Governor General of Bengal designated as the Governor General of India?
D, per UPSC's key. What it tests: 1833 as the point of centralisation. Two things stand out about that year: the 1833 charter was one of the measures by which Parliament tightened its scrutiny of the Company's government, and Bombay and Madras lost their independent power to legislate in 1833. The designation itself is Lesson 2 material.
A tempts because 1773 did place Bombay and Madras under Bengal and vest authority in the Governor-General and a council of four. Subordination of the presidencies and the all-India designation are different steps, and UPSC places the designation in 1833.
Consider the following statements about the Charter Act of 1813:
- It ended the trade monopoly of the East India Company in India except for trade in tea and trade with China.
- It asserted the sovereignty of the British Crown over the Indian territories held by the Company.
- The revenues of India were now controlled by the British Parliament.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A, per UPSC's key. What it tests: the exact exception to the end of the monopoly (tea, and the trade with China), and the difference between asserting sovereignty and taking control of revenue. The 1813 charter counts among the measures that pushed the Company to the margins of government. The provisions themselves are Lesson 2 material.
D tempts if "sovereignty asserted" slides in your mind into "revenues controlled". UPSC's key separates them; statement 3 is rejected.
Which one of the following provisions was not made in the Charter Act of 1833?
D, per the published key. What it tests: the Law Member. The office was a common-law expert placed inside the executive, a constitutional authority within it, so that legislation would be drafted without defects, tied to the executive's effort to discipline troublesome courts. Nothing here says the member was to be Indian, and the key agrees: that is the provision that was not made. Options A and B describe provisions not covered by this lesson.
C tempts because it reads as too sweeping to be true. The key treats it as a provision that was made; the revocation of the presidencies' legislative powers in 1833 points the same way.