The law is of no use till the time it is practiced
The law is of no use till the time it is practiced, followed and respected. Sociological jurisprudence is a term coined by the American jurist Roscoe Pound to describe the approach to the understanding of the law. This philosophical approach to law, stresses on the actual social effects of legal institutions, doctrines, and practices. It examines the actual effects of the law within society and the influence of social phenomena on the substantive and procedural aspects of law. This is also known as sociology of law. The basic thought process of Jurisprudence is to make sure that the need and want of society is kept in mind by the maker of law while framing the law. It ensures that the law so made is for the welfare of the people and it’s the job of the lawyers to make sure that the society so engineered is a string one and each and every member of the society is kept in mind while framing the law.
With the various components clamoring for special privilege and treatment, societies across the world have looked towards the courts for benevolent interventions. Serving their cause, sociological jurisprudence has come a long way from being a theoretical stream towards being consulted for mass reforms. Her we will put light on the role of the Supreme Court of India, as the final arbiter of the Constitution, in its performance of this role of bringing about equality and social change, building way for an advanced and modern outlook. The perspective has been entirely societal oriented and therefore ‘social change’, as the sociologists look at it, has been made the focal point. The approach is to analyze the decisions of the Court, as the reflection of its opinion and contribution towards the attainment of this egalitarian objective. Sociological jurisprudence plays an important role in forming the main structure for the formation of the economic changes taking places in the society. It all refers to the ancient India, at the time India got independence, when it was totally hopeless about its future after the partition between India and Pakistan. India had no clue how to form its layout of laws and jurisdictions to run the country in a peaceful manner. Moreover , the Indian parliament concentrating all the power of decision making had more preferentially focus upon the security aspect in order to protect the people of the country from the newly formed neighbor. At that time nobody had any idea that the country will one day prosper to such a state that its citizens will understand the concept of social jurisprudence and rack with the changing time and developing nation to lead the path beyond thought.
It is well known that the relations between individual, society and State are never static, they have always been changing with the exigencies of time and needs of the society. Initially the country worked on the laws that were made by the English to ascertain their dominance over the next era but with changing times the people fought for independence and removed the control .After independence the new constitution was formed, Supreme Court of India was then formed to decide over all anomalies and to set laws to run the system smoothly, then personnel’s were presented with powers to force these laws all over the nation. As we know the main source of law in modern times is legislation. By its very nature, legislation brings about at a particular moment abrupt change in social relations. This is in sharp contrast to customary law which evolved very slowly over the centuries without radical and abrupt departure from the past. Since each major technical advance in modern industrial society brings about a change in social relations, it calls for new legal norms, which is not possible by slow customary growth. Hence, legislation has become the most important source of law in modern society. As pointed out by the sociological jurists, there were often gaps in the statutory law, and also the statutory law did not always keep pace with the pace of social development due to advancement in technology. This required judge made law to fill in these gaps, in certain circumstances.
Over the first period there were many possibilities tried to eliminate the untouchability although it exists at some places, various laws were integrated to present the citizens with a modern aspect of equality in the nation. For this systems like reservation systems were set to present a common platform and provide exposure to the people of all statutes and diversities. But this ended up with more demand from the protected community, as they tried to take the unwanted privilege of the system which resulted with many chaos, riots and rallies. Considering this, it was a point when the main jurist who tried to serve for a cause of betterment of the nation, ended up with an adverse effect all over the country.
Rather from this there were provisions made with changing time to overcome the forceful act of bonded labor. People were set free from their imprisonment and given freedom to choose any profession and any field of work the like in order to develop and prosper like valued citizens of the nation. In this Era there was a time when there were greasy hands that tried to destroy the dignity of the women. To serve for this, laws were made and emphasized in all areas of the nation. Gender equality was a factor of main focus where demands were fulfilled to provide equal pay, equal jobs for the deserved and many more. Due to various crimes taking place that hurt the dignity of women like rape cases, female feticides, home violence etc. strict laws were made and enforced to provide women with security, stability and freedom of existence.
Over the last years with the developing nation variety of economic reforms took place in order to support the common being for its improvement and existence in the competitive world of fast moving reality. With banks declared as nationalized, the common man allowed monetary facilities at a very nominal rate of operation. Personal loans were provided to the people by the government with the aim of improving the growth of the nation. With digitalization, everything that took place at snail speed was possible by just a finger touch. But, this also led to various crimes for which once more laws were set. From this it is clear that the old analytical approach towards law was obviously abandoned in the interest of common goals as it was unnecessary, unreal and inconvenient to the emergence of new social order. Hence a new sociological approach for reconciling conflicting social interests and values became necessary for bringing peaceful social change through law. Thus we can conclude that India has remarkably embraced the concept and principles of Sociological Jurisprudence and that can be seen by the judgment that is being delivered by the apex Court. Also, different Statutes has taken into account the theory in a way or other and it can be easily said that the Sociological Jurisprudence has been widely accepted on the legal frontier of the country.
