SIKH DIASPORA : Legal Pluralism and Dispute Settlement

In this book an effort is made to explore how the state and non-state legal systems are interrelated in popular perception and practice. Do the people prefer to settle their disputes within the legal framework initiated by the state or outside it? And why? An effort is also made to discuss all the modes and methods, patterns and processes, based on customary, religious and community traditions, practiced in the process of dispute settlement. The study is quite significant in that it introduces a double hermeneutic paradigm for plural legal systems: the formal and the informal. It will also help the legal administrators to develop a proper realignment between the informal and formal systems of law and justice.

Prit Paul is working as an assistant professor of criminal justice at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama, USA. She obtained her post-doctorate from California State University, Sacramento, California, USA, and PhD in Sociology of Law from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.