A unique indigenous justice delivery system of tribes of eastern Himalayan region of India

Abstract

Almost all the tribes across the world have their own indigenous concept of rules, regulation and grievance redress system developed with the evolution of the community to maintain peace, justice and harmony. The indigenous people takes law as a way of life and understand it through experience and interactions. The objective of the current research was to study one unique justice delivery system to address non-criminal cases that cannot be dealt with normal procedure due to lack of evidence, witness and formal proof. The system is prevailing among the tribes of eastern Himalayan region of India. The phenomenological approach was used to study the system as it is in situ. The justice is delivered on the basis of unique system of decision making between two alternatives based on the shape of chicken liver. Involvement of spirituality and spirit make the system acceptable to both the complainant and defendant. The unique characteristic of the system is that it does not penalize the loser, instead the court pray for them and bless them for abiding the decision of the court in presence of the spirit. The justice delivery system aims to maintain harmony in the society as well as save the face of both the loser and winner. In the present system, the justice delivered may be not the just decision, but the loser accepts the decision considering it as the command of the god and spirit without keeping any grudges against the winner. The system demands participation of whole village irrespective of gender and ages, with fundamental aim of preserving the custom and hand down to the next generation.