LL.B. (Three Years) Jurisprudence Syllabus - SPPU 2026

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Syllabus for Jurisprudence

Semester 2 · First Year · 4 credits

Objectives

The course aims at developing an analytical approach to understand the nature of law and the development of legal system. Jurisprudence seeks to answer fundamental questions about law. The concerns of jurisprudence are an inescapable feature of the law and legal system. Jurisprudence has generous frontiers because it sensitizes the students to adopt a pragmatic approach in legal study by way of clubbing theory with practice. So, it is a subject which forms the foundation of the law degree. It accommodates copious subjects of intellectual enquiry. This course identifies and elucidates several of the major preoccupations of legal theory. This course also creates an understanding of basic legal concepts like Rights, Person, Property, Title,
Possession, Ownership, Liability, Obligation which are basic to the study of Law. So, this paper will give an overview to the students about law and legal systems prevalent in the world and India in particular, so that they can understand the jurisprudence of all subjects taught to them over a span of three years.
Outcomes:
1. Students will be acquainted with the basic ideas and fundamental principles of Law in the given society.
2. Knowledge of Law and Legal precepts will help the students to face exigencies of life boldly and courageously.
3. Students will be inculcated with standards of ideal for human conduct in terms of law for the maintenance of public conscience.
4. Students will be able to identify such pressing demand or problems which require solution within the parameters of the law, justice and other social norms

Module 01: Introduction to Jurisprudence

1. Jurisprudence: Meaning, Nature, and Utility,
2. Characteristics, Purposes and Classification of Law
3. Relationship between Law and Morality

Module 02: Sources of Law

Sources of Law
1) Custom - Meaning, nature, essential conditions, kinds, concept of Volkgeist,
2) Legislation - Meaning, nature, kinds, merits and demerits, relation with other sources,
3) Precedent - Meaning, nature, theories of Precedent, Doctrine of Stare Decisis, article 141 of the Constitution of India, kinds, ratio decidendi and obiter dicta, doctrine of prospective overruling, significance and circumstances destroying binding force, relation with other sources, Juristic Writings - Meaning, nature and significance.

Module 03: Natural Law Theories and Revival of Natural Law

1. Classical Natural Law theory: Plato to St. Thomas Acquinas
2. Natural law and Social Contract Theory: Hugo Grotius and International Law, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
3. Revival of Natural Law: Lon Fuller and the Morality of Law, H.L.A. Hart on Natural Law, John Finnis and the Restatement of Natural Law

Module 04: Legal Positivism

1. Bentham and John Austin's theory of positivism
2. Hart's concept of law
3. Kelson’s Pure Theory of law

Module 05: Sociological, Realist, Historical Schools of Law and Critical Legal Studies

1. Sociological school of law - Roscoe Pound
2. Realist school of law: American Realism: W Holmes, Karl Llewellyn, Jerome Frank
3. Historical school of jurisprudence - Savigny and Maine. - Comparison of Historical and Analytical School of Law
4. Critical Legal studies: Brief study of - (1) Feminist Legal theory and (2) Critical Race theory

Module 06: Concept of Person, Right and Duties

1. Nature of Personality - Natural and Legal, Legal Status of Lower Animals, Dead persons, Unborn Persons, Kinds of Legal Persons, Uses and Purposes of Incorporation, Theories of Legal Personality
2. Meaning of Wrong, Duty and Right, Characteristics of Legal Rights, Kinds of Legal Rights, Theories of Legal Rights, Hohfeldian Classification of Legal Right

Module 07: Concepts of Ownership, Possession and Title

1. Meaning of Ownership, Characteristic of Ownership, Subject-matter of Ownership, Kinds of Ownership, Modes of acquiring Ownership
2. Meaning of Possession, Kinds of Possession, Modes of acquiring Possession, Possessory Remedies, Comparison between Ownership and Possession
3. Definition and Nature of Title, Classification of Titles, Importance of Agreements, Kinds of Agreements, Validity of Agreement

Module 09: Obligations and Liability

1. Definition of Obligation, Solitary Obligations, Sources of Obligations
2. Nature of Liability, Kinds of Liability, General Conditions of Liability, Measure of Penal Liability, Measure of Civil Liability, Theory of Strict and Absolute Liability, Vicarious Liability in Civil and Criminal Law, Liability of Corporations

The complete syllabus

Every subject above is cut from the revised syllabus. Open the document here if you want the whole thing rather than a single subject.

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