The Common Law in India - College of Social Sciences and ...

110 The Common Law in IndiaIn England the courts and Parliament have contributedto the rationalisation of the law by eliminatingunjust rules which were either the relics of historyor the products of a vanished social order and by theextension of legal liability in response to changingconditions. Thus the House of Lords discarded thetheory of privity which denied justice in manydeserving cases. 7a The Fatal Accidents Act abrogatedthe common law rule which had denied a remedy tothe representative of a person whose death had beencaused by another. The extension of legal liabilitymay be instanced by the extension of the scope ofemployers' liability for their servants' torts, on thebasis of social policy and expediency rather than onany judicial principle. One may refer to the FactoriesActs and Workmen's Compensation Acts. The Englishcourts, taking a further step, have now recognisedthe loss of expectation of life as a distinct head ofdamages besides physical pain and suffering andpecuniary loss resulting from bodily harm. 8A draft of a code of torts for India was preparedby Sir Frederick Pollock but it was never enacted intolaw. In the absence of a code the law of civil wrongsadministered in India is almost wholly the commonlaw of England. So much of the English law asseemed suitable to Indian conditions has been appliedas rules of justice, equity and good conscience.A familiar illustration is the principle enunciatedby the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as?a Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562.8 Flint v. Lovell [1935] 1 K.B. 354; Rose v. Ford [1937] A.C.826; Benharn v. Gambling [1941] A.C. 157.