Critical Analysis of Legal Reforms, Economic Development and Social Justice in the Context of India’s Neo-Liberal Economic Policy

Abstract

Since independence, India had followed the mixed economy framework by combining the advantages of the market economic system with those of the planned economic system. India’s economic reforms began slowly in the 1980s, and then accelerated under the pressure of an external crisis with internal impact at the beginning of the 1990s.  But over the years, the economic policy enacted in 1991 resulted in the establishment of a variety of rules and laws which were aimed at controlling and regulating the economy and instead evidently ended up hampering the process of growth and development. India’s future productivity is premised largely on the available institutions being involved in successfully assessing, evaluating, directing through planned policy and information, all activities within an effective and comprehensive national developmental plan and therefore; liberal, safe and flexible legal environment needs to be created. However, on the other hand, it is also important to see that the fruits of development should reach to the downtrodden people of society. The ultimate goal of Legal Reforms and Economic Development should be “Social Justice and Public Welfare”. Considering the prevailing socio-legal-political and economic dynamics of India this paper aims at understanding that how the governmental policies and laws which came into being as a result of Economic Reform of 1991 impact the citizens of the country and industrial world that is whether the policies bring about changes in the interest of the country as a whole or whether there is infringement of people’s rights.

Keywords: India, Legal Reforms, Economic Reforms, Development, Growth, Globalization, Open Economy, Social Justice.