‘Private International Law’ or otherwise known as ‘conflict of laws’, has been in existence in the Common Law Countries over 200 years and in Civil Law Countries from at least the 12th or 13th century and is a subject of growing importance. It is a universal principle of jurisprudence that a sovereign is supreme within his territory and has exclusive jurisdiction over everything and everybody within that territory. Applying this principle, one country can very well refuse to recognise any foreign rule of law in the determination of cases arising in the courts of that country. But this policy of indifference to foreign systems of law is impracticable in the modern civilised world. It is no longer possible by taking shelter under the principle of territorial sovereignty to ignore foreign rules of law simply because they differ from the domestic rules. Private international law directs the court to apply the foreign rules of law although these rules are at variance in the country where the court is situated.

The three- fold functions of private international law are, firstly, to prescribe the conditions under which the court is competent to entertain a suit containing a foreign element ( jurisdiction), secondly to choose the relevant foreign law by the application of which the rights of parties are to be determined (Choice of law) and thirdly recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.

In the present day world, where migration of people is taking place on a large scale and trade and industry transcend national boundaries, ‘Private International Law’ has an important role to play in the administration of justice.

Private International Law in India is an enigmatic subject spread over case law traditionally from England. In the last two decades case law on the subject has been developed in India also. It is important to remember that Private  International Law cannot be isolated into a water tight  compartment as in the case of law of contracts, torts etc., it does not deal with a particular topic, but on the contrary, it embraces all branches of municipal law. Really private international law is a cross section of almost the whole law. It is all pervading. It may come up in any kind of action, in case involving any topic of law.

This book provides a short cut to the students of the 5 year law degree course to enable them to get a broad understanding of the topics that would be covered under the revised syllabus with effect from the academic year 2009-2010. Though every effort has taken to incorporate the developments / amendments on the subject, it may happen that some developments might have taken place subsequent to release of the book for publication. Hence, the readers are therefore advised to study recent amendments / case laws.