Indian Criminal Law System: Penal Code, Court System, Prosecutor

Running head: LAW 1433-01
Law 1433-01
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LAW 1433-01
Table of Contents
The Indian Criminal Law System........................................................................................2
Type of Criminal Code........................................................................................................3
The Prosecutor.....................................................................................................................4
The Court System................................................................................................................5
Distinction from the Canadian set up..................................................................................5
References............................................................................................................................7

2LAW 1433-01
The Indian Criminal Law System
The Indian Criminal law system has been distributed under three major legislations that
protect the country and its citizens from every possible criminal act that it can face in today’s
society. The three major legislations are the Indian Penal Code 1860, Code of Criminal
Procedure 1973, and Indian Evidence Act 1872. Other than these three, there are several other
legislations pertaining to criminal law passed by the Indian Legislature (law making body) like
the Prevention of Corruption Act, Dowry Prohibition Act, Food Adulteration Act and et cetera
that are made to address specific issues.
Coming back to the significant legislations, the Indian penal Code is the official criminal
manual of India which covers the substantial subject matters of the criminal law pertaining to
Indian context. The Code strives to provide the definition of the crimes and the specific
punishments related to such particular crimes. The Criminal Procedure Code is the most
significant procedural legislation that states the procedures, standards and conducts that are
followed for administration of the criminal laws in the country. It acts a machinery that helps in
understanding the structure of court system in India, the way to investigate a criminal cases,
collection of evidences, evaluation of the innocence or guilt of the accused, determination of the
type of punishment, et cetera. In addition, it also comprises of provisions for dealing with public
nuisance, maintenance of wife, child and parents, prevention of offences among others. On the
other hand, Evidence Act comprise of a set of rules and regulations that deals with the
admissibility of different types of evidences in a court of law. The Evidence Act is based on the
work of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who could be considered as the founder of the Evidence
Act. It mainly consists of two types of provisions, one is about admitting the evidence by the
court and the other one is its evaluation.