Ollikainen-Read, E.K.; (2025) Jeremy Bentham and the Communication of Legal Authority: The Indian Penal Code of 1860. Journal of Bentham Studies , 23 (1) pp. 1-29. 10.14324/111.2045-757X.058.

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Abstract

This article considers the creation of the Indian Penal Code of 1860 through a utilitarian lens, reframing the Code as a means of communicating and representing colonial legal authority. It borrows from studies of law as communication to argue that the codification of criminal law was not only about communicating substantive law, but served as a representation of the authority of the legislature, and the relationship between the colonial State and the individual.Through an examination of the history of codification in Europe and the importance afforded to the communicability of the law in utilitarian legal thinking, this article demonstrates that these foundations are clearly reflected in the drafting of the Indian Penal Code. There was however, a long delay between the drafting of the Penal Code and its enactment in 1860. It is argued that the takeover of India by the Crown in 1858, and the subsequent reframing of colonial authority meant that the communicative value of the Penal Code was reconsidered in a new light. This article builds on the work of scholars of the Indian Penal Code, including K.J.M. Smith and Barry Wright, to raise the possibility of further historical study on the theoretical considerations of the codification of transplanted laws in Britain’s colonies, from the perspective of communication. In particular, this article offers an assessment of how codifying the law was a means of legitimising colonial authority.

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