Hostile witnesses, judicial interactions and out-of-court narratives in a north Indian district court

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3864643
AutoresDaniela Berti (0000-0001-7113-5103, Daniela Berti is at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research) (CNRS), Centre for Himalayan Studies (CHS)., autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen44
Número3
Páginas235-263
Fecha de publicación2010-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaContributions to Indian Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0069-9659 • E-ISSN: 0069-9667
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/006996671004400302
OpenAlexW2003062080
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17
Referencias citadas11

This article examines the argument that people in India are strongly oriented towards litigation in court as against other forms of negotiation or advising. In spite of the centrality of the court system to Indian public life, the flow of cases arriving at court does not reflect any such fixed preference. Going to court may simply be a choice which the parties make in the first instance, but which will eventually be abandoned in favour of private forms of compromise. By drawing on the ethnography of a court case followed in a district court of Himachal Pradesh, this contribution will show how even in serious criminal cases where no private compromise is allowed, it often happens that all the prosecution witnesses deny before the judge what they are supposed to have previously stated to the police. The analysis of court interactions and out-of-court narratives will show how nonofficial forms of conciliation may internally unsettle the rules of evidence followed in criminal proceedings

Adversarial system · Argument (complex analysis · Compromise · Conciliation · Court of record · Criminal court · International law · Jurisdiction · Mediation · Narrative · Negotiation · Original jurisdiction · Political science · Sociology · Law · Law in Society and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies