Courts in India- Criminal Courts, Hierarchy and Procedure

It is generally presumed that the earlier form of punishment for acts which can be called criminal was private revenge. Retaliation for an inflicted injury was the personal affairs of the victims or their surviving kin and the community did not usually interfere. Private revenge often led to blood feuds between families, clans or tribes. The resulting loss of life and property sometimes became so great that communities began, very slowly, to restrict private vengeance, and to impose trial and official penalties on offenders.  However, feuds- particularly between powerful families of different communities-continued to be one of the cause of war.

             The religious leaders often played the role of moderators of conflicts and punishers of offences. The threat of divine revenge was used against criminals at a time when the fear of gods and supernatural forces was considerable, magic and religion were found to be effective socio-political tools. Acts that could be said to have adversely affected the well being of the community were considered affronts to the gods, and calamities and disasters such as the plague, earthquakes, etc were seen as expressions of divine anger. If the punishment meted out to wrongdoers was commensurate with the crime they had committed, it was thought to lessen the gods' fury. This was the early origin of lex talionis ('an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'); this could also be said to be the point at which notions of crime and sin began to overlap.

   In addition to this, there was also something called state revenge. It was believed that anti-personal or anti-social behaviour not only offended the gods, but also had its effect on the political stability and the welfare of the social group. The state acted independently of the temple in punishing  the wrongdoer, and it is this state revenge that is the origin of modern justice where the victim has to seek redress from the proper authorities for the wrong that has been done to him/her.

    India produced the laws, or code of Manu, generally thought to date between the thirteenth and ninth centuries B.C. The code specified that part of the judge's functions was to probe the heart of the accused and of witnesses by studying their posture, mien and changes in voice and expression. Thus, this was the first code of law to take account of judicial psychology, something  that can be found in our present- day penal code and  the criminal courts.