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Introduction: Picturing sociological scenes—Social life of law in India

In an overcrowded court on a sultry afternoon in August 2018, I was surprised when the Delhi High Court’s education bench had to repeatedly remind an insistent lawyer, ‘this is a court, not a panchayat1’. The lawyer had not filed an application for his client’s plea, yet wanted an order citing the last date of admission in the medical college as a ground of urgency. Only urgent admission matters were being heard. The booming voice of the judge rang clearly through the crowded courtroom, repeatedly reminding the lawyer that this was a court of law. The iconic cinematic scene of a courtroom with a gavel resounding ‘order, order’ is here replaced by the booming command ‘this is a court, not a panchayat’, to re-inscribe the place of technicalities, documents and procedure in the making of a brief as the necessary condition of the production of the law.