KSLU Solved Question Papers
Legal Methods
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2025 Jun (100 marks) Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Legal Methods 2025 Jun (100 marks) Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2025 Jun (100 marks) examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025 Jun (100 marks) examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 13 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1Discuss the essential functions of Legal Process.[16]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the meaning of law, legal process and their relation; Alan Watson's search for the essential function, his method of elimination and his answer with its three parts; the other functions commonly ascribed to legal process, each with Indian illustrations; how the Constitution and procedural law secure the functions; the cases; a table; criticism; a conclusion.
Law and legal process
Law is the body of rules a State makes or recognises and enforces. Legal process is the machinery through which those rules are applied to real disputes and real people. It includes courts, tribunals, arbitrators, the police and prosecutors, the rules of procedure and evidence, and the steps from a complaint to a final order.
Law and legal process depend on each other. A rule that no process enforces is only advice. A process that applies no rule is only power. The question is what a legal process must do, in every society, to count as a legal process at all.
Alan Watson's question and method
Alan Watson, in The Nature of Law (1977), tried to separate the necessary features of law from the typical ones. He looked at many legal systems, ancient and modern. He asked which function every legal process performs, and he set aside any function that some legal processes did not perform. This method of elimination left him with one essential function.
Watson's answer
His view is usually summarised like this. The sole essential function of a legal process is to resolve disputes in a way that inhibits further unregulated conflict. It has three parts.
- Institutionalising disputes. A quarrel is taken out of the hands of the parties and placed before a recognised body that follows fixed rules. A neighbour's encroachment becomes a civil suit, not a fight.
- Validating decisions. The body's decision is accepted as authoritative. The losing party may dislike it, but society treats it as binding.
- Inhibiting unregulated conflict. Once decided, the dispute should not erupt again in self-help or violence.
These three parts explain why every legal system has some form of court, some way of making its decisions binding, and some rule of finality.
The other functions of legal process
Watson treated other functions as important but not essential. Most writers list them as the functions a developed legal process performs.
1. Maintaining order. The criminal process takes punishment out of private hands. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 lays down how offences are investigated, tried and punished by the State.
2. Protecting rights. Courts enforce rights against other persons and against the State. Article 32 makes the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of fundamental rights itself a fundamental right.
3. Controlling power. Every official act must have a legal basis and stay within it. In A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India, AIR 1970 SC 150, a selection was set aside because a candidate sat on the board that judged his rivals: "It is against all canons of justice to make a man judge in his own cause."
4. Providing certainty. Settled procedure and precedent let people predict outcomes. Article 141 makes the law declared by the Supreme Court binding on all courts.
5. Adapting the law. Courts interpret law to meet new facts. In Bhagwandas Goverdhandas Kedia v. Girdharilal Parshottamdas and Co., 1966 AIR 543, the Court applied the old rules of offer and acceptance to a contract made by telephone.
6. Legitimising authority. A decision reached by a fair process is accepted even by those who lose. That acceptance is what keeps order without constant force.
The stages of legal process
A legal process usually moves through fixed stages, each serving one of its functions.
- Initiation. A plaint is filed in a civil court, or a complaint or first information report sets a criminal case going.
- Notice and pleadings. The other side is told of the claim and states its answer. This is the first guarantee of fairness.
- Framing of issues. The court identifies exactly what is in dispute.
- Evidence and hearing. Each side proves its facts and argues the law.
- Decision. The court gives a reasoned judgment and an order.
- Appeal or review. A higher court corrects errors.
- Execution. The decision is carried out, by force if needed.
Each stage is a safeguard. Skipping one weakens the authority of the result.
Legal process outside the courts
Legal process is not confined to courts. Arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 and Lok Adalats under the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 are also legal processes. They settle disputes by a neutral forum, and the law gives their outcomes binding force. They perform the same essential function more quickly and cheaply.
How Indian law secures the functions
| Function | How Indian law secures it |
|---|---|
| Institutionalising disputes | CPC s.9: civil courts try "all suits of a civil nature" unless barred |
| Validating decisions | Art. 141; decrees enforceable under the CPC; Lok Adalat awards deemed decrees |
| Inhibiting renewed conflict | Res judicata, CPC s.11; limitation periods |
| Fair procedure | Art. 21, read in Maneka Gandhi as "right and just and fair" |
| Access to the process | Art. 39A free legal aid; Anita Kushwaha |
| Maintaining order | BNS and BNSS 2023 |
The cases
Anita Kushwaha v. Pushap Sudan, (2016) 8 SCC 509. Transfer petitions raised whether the Supreme Court could transfer cases to and from Jammu and Kashmir, where the ordinary transfer provisions did not apply. The Court held that access to justice is a fundamental right under Articles 21 and 14. It named four facets. The State must provide an effective adjudicatory mechanism. It must be reasonably accessible in distance. The process must be speedy. And it must be affordable. Without these, no legal process can perform its essential function.
P.T. Thomas v. Thomas Job, (2005) 6 SCC 478. Brothers settled a dispute in a Lok Adalat. The award required a sale deed against payment. The High Court later treated the award as open to challenge. The Supreme Court set that aside. Section 21 of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 makes a Lok Adalat award a deemed decree, final, with no appeal. The case shows the process validating a settlement and closing the dispute for good.
Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh v. State of Gujarat, (2004) 4 SCC 158. In the Best Bakery case, witnesses turned hostile under threat and all the accused were acquitted. The Supreme Court ordered a retrial outside the State. It held: "Denial of a fair trial is as much injustice to the accused as is to the victim and the society." A process that does not command trust cannot inhibit conflict; it provokes it.
Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, (1980) 1 SCC 81. A survey showed undertrial prisoners in Bihar held for years without trial. The Court held that speedy trial is part of Article 21. A process that never reaches a decision fails its essential function as surely as one that decides unfairly.
Criticism
- Watson's essence is narrow. Critics argue that a function may be necessary without being the only essential one. In a constitutional democracy, protecting rights seems as basic as settling disputes.
- Delay defeats every function. A dispute that drags on for many years keeps conflict alive, which is why speedy trial is now part of Article 21.
- Cost and distance exclude many people. A process that the poor cannot reach exists only on paper.
- Formal settlement may not end real conflict. Where a decision is seen as unjust, the conflict may return in another form.
Conclusion. The essential function of legal process, in Watson's account, is to resolve disputes so that they do not break out again. It does so by institutionalising disputes, validating decisions and inhibiting unregulated conflict. A developed legal process also keeps order, protects rights, controls power, gives certainty, adapts the law and legitimises authority. Indian law builds these functions into the Constitution and the procedural codes. Anita Kushwaha, P.T. Thomas, Zahira Habibulla and Hussainara Khatoon show that the functions are achieved only when the process is accessible, final, fair and timely.
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