The Indian courts are a mish mash of various and varied legal systems. There is of course the legacy of our colonizers writ large in the common law principles we use. Then there are principles of the Shastras and the Quran that determine our personal laws. But while these are influences on the laws themselves, we often forget the evolution of our courts.
While the drama and romance of the courts is arguably in the courtroom, my little post here is on the actors behind the stage. While I was making my way around the maze that is the Patiala House Courts, I learnt a thing or two about the way courts work. One of my favourite discoveries was the ahelmad.
Ahelmads are essentially court clerks. Their job is to prepare the cause list of the day, ensure that the huge mass of papers that flow through the court that is assigned to them are filed and documented. The grease who help run the judicial machine, basically.
A journalist friend of mine advised me to make friends with the ahelmads, “They come in handy”, he said. He was right. So when my boss forgot the next date of hearing of a certain case, or wanted a copy from the case file, he’d send me off with a notepad and a pen or sometimes a fifty rupee note. I’d hunt for the right ahelmad, and then find the priced information. Some of them were wise old people who knew more about the Criminal Procedure Code than I could ever hope to. Some were well versed in the politics of the court complex, discussed over a cuppa. And then there were of course the lackadaisical few. I’ve heard stories of how sometimes, the ahelmad can even erase evidence from the face of the judicial file and help make or break a case.
So where do these ahelmads come from? A vestige of the Muslim system of law that we had in the Indian subcontinent (I don’t say India, for India as we know it wasn’t born as yet), which itself was greatly influenced by Persian culture. And when the British in India began tinkering with the legal system, they had to come up with a sui generis court system. One in which they could use all the local help they could, what with language being such a huge barrier. The court clerks then became indispensable.
This then is the little story behind the ahelmads I have come to understand. Thing is though, I have been unable to come up with a good source to back me up on this. Try looking for ahelmads on Google Scholar, forget Google, you’ll learn next to nothing. Guess I’ll bury myself in a book on legal history, besides the ones I tried looking up here at the library in law school when I find the time. Will let you know if I learn more.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Facebook comments:
Powered by Facebook Comments