Unit 2 of Legal Writing and Legal Language (syllabus: Module II — core legal concepts; reading a judgment through Maneka Gandhi v Union of India and Municipal Council, Ratlam v Vardhichand; the trials of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, K. M. Nanavati and Derek Chauvin). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.
What this unit covers
- What is the difference between a crime and a civil wrong?
- What is an offence in law, and can the same act be punished twice?
- Who is a person in law, and why does the answer matter to litigation?
- What is jurisdiction, and what kinds of jurisdiction must a student distinguish?
- What is a remedy, and why must a remedy be made effective?
- How do you read a reported judgment, and why must the headnote never be mistaken for the order?
- What were the sedition trials of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and what is left of that law today?
- How did the Nanavati case travel through four stages, and what is the test of grave and sudden provocation?
Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.
Provisions
- General Clauses Act 1897, s. ss. 3(38), 3(2) and 26
- General Clauses Act 1897, s. s. 3(42)
- Constitution of India, s. Articles 32, 142, 161 and 226
- Code of Criminal Procedure and the Constitution, s. s. 133 of the Code then in force; Articles 32 and 226
- Sedition under the penal law then in force, now replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, s. ss. 152 and 196 of the present code
- Indian Penal Code as then in force, s. Exception 1 to s. 300 and s. 302
Leading cases
- Municipal Council
- K.M. Nanavati v State of Bombay (1961)
- Maneka Gandhi v Union of India
- Kedar Nath Singh v State of Bihar
- K.M. Nanavati v State of Maharashtra (1961)