Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

For roughly two hundred years, the final word on an Indian lawsuit — a Calcutta property dispute, a Bombay succession case, a Madras contract claim — could be spoken by a committee sitting in London that most of the litigants involved would never see in person. That committee is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and this topic asks what it actually was and why India cared so much about it.

In two minutes

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was the King-in-Council's advisory body for hearing appeals from across the British Empire, and for nearly two centuries it functioned as the highest court of appeal for India, shaping Indian law through its decisions long before India had a Supreme Court of its own.

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