For the Better and for the Worse

Legislations have to be enacted, amended or repealed for catering to the needs of the changing society and the State. It is for the State or the Executive to present the Legislature with proposals or bills. The responsibility of the State increases when it rules or governs colonies where there is a vacuum or the need for change. e British East India Company was required to have rules in the form of orders, regulations, resolutions and enactments in several areas to achieve this purpose. For the Better and for the Worse, a peep into the past, focuses on these areas to appreciate and analyse the legislative activity that took place during the colonial rule. It covers areas such as sati, female infanticide, child marriage, widow remarriage, salt, indigo, opium, labour, slavery, justice, trial, punishment and prisons. Readers would be the best judges to opine on the best and the worst of these provisions. JUSTICE S.D. DAVE was enrolled as an advocate in 1962. Appointed as the District Judge in 1977, he was elevated to a Judge of the High Court of Gujarat in 1990. Afer retiring in 1999, Justice Dave worked for three years as the Chairman of the Gujarat State Law Commission and as the Chairman of the Gujarat State Electricity Regulatory Commission. He has worked as the Commission of Inquiry on three occasions and once as the mediator, appointed by the Government. He has also prepared a basic document ‘Access to Justice in India’ for deliberations. Justice Dave is the author of three books, e Supreme Court, the High Courts and the Personal Laws of India (2019); Nuclear India (2017); and e Privy Council, the British Courts and the Personal Laws of India (2014) which came to be recorded in the Black Books of the Hon’ble Society of the Lincoln’s Inn while the Rt. Hon’ble Lord Justice Goldring was the Master of the Library. Justice Dave is an Arbitrator and Consultant in Law in Ahmedabad at present.