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  1. The Role And Responsibility of a Legal Aid Lawyer
  2. Rights of the Accused and Exceptional Circumstances
  3. Client Interview
  4. Other Pretrial Matters
  5. Theory of the Case
  6. Various Defense Strategies
  7. Questioning the Witness
  8. Plea Bargaining/Guilty Plea
  9. Evidence
  10. Arguments





The Republic of India is the largest democracy in the world and the second most populous nation in Southeast Asia. Beginning in the early 18th century, India was gradually annexed by the British East India Company. By the mid-19th century, India had fallen under the direct administration of the United Kingdom. India became an independent nation in 1947, following the protracted efforts of an India independence movement which took on a variety of forms and philosophies, the most widely recognized being the non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Ghandi.

India is comprised of 28 states and 7 union territories. While the states of India have their own elected governments, the union territories are directly ruled by the federal government, with the President of India appointing an Administrator or Lieutenant-Governor to act as the top official in each union territory. Delhi and Pondicherry are the only union territories which have been granted partial statehood, and each possesses an elected legislative assembly and an executive council of ministers. The powers of these bodies are limited, as certain types of legislation are reserved for the “consideration and assent” of the President of India.

India has a federal government divided into three branches; the executive, legislative and judicial. The Constitution of India serves as the supreme legal document. The principal authorities in the executive branch are the President, who serves as head of state and is indirectly elected by a national electoral college for a five-year term, and the Prime Minister of India, who is appointed by the President and exercises most of the executive power. The legislature is a bicameral parliament modeled after the parliamentary system of the United Kingdom, with powers divided between an indirectly elected upper house, the Rajya Sabha (“Council of States”) and a directly elected lower house, the Lok Sabha (“House of the People”). The judiciary is an independent, three-tiered body, with the power to declare the law and strike down union or state laws which contravene the constitution. The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial authority and the ultimate interpreter of the constitution.

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See Criminal Justice Systems Around the World




  1. Constitution of India, Art. 22(1)
  2. Constitution of India, Art. 20(3)
  3. Constitution of India, Art. 14
  4. India Evidence Act, Section 138
  6. Criminal Procedure Code, Sect. 41
  7. Criminal Procedure Code, Section 50A
  8. Constitution of India, Article 22(2)
  10. Criminal Procedure Code Sec. 327
  11. Indian Evidence Act Sec. 138
  12. Criminal Procedure Code, Sect. 164.
  15. Constitution of India, Art. 32(2)