A court of equity, equity court or chancery court is a court that is authorized to apply principles of equity, as opposed to those of law, to cases brought before it. These courts began with petitions to the Lord Chancellor of England. Equity courts "handled lawsuits and petitions requesting remedies other than damages, such as writs, injunctions, and specific performance". Most equity courts were eventually "merged with courts of law". The adoption of various Acts has provided courts the combined jurisdiction to enable common law and equity to be administered concurrently. The courts of equity are now recognised for enhancing the common law by reducing its deficiencies and improving justice. Some states in the early republic of the United States followed the English tradition of maintaining separate courts for law and equity. Others vested their courts with both types of jurisdiction, as the US Congress did with respect to the federal courts. United States bankruptcy courts are the one example of a US federal court which operates as a court of equity. Some common law jurisdictions—such as the U.S. states of Delaware, Mississippi, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Tennessee—preserve the distinctions between law and equity and between courts of law and courts of equity (or, in New Jersey, between the civil and general equity divisions of the New Jersey Superior Court). History The peculiar nature of the courts of equity is the result of its historical evolution. This history has played a critical role in their developing application in case law, illustrating the values that have shaped and developed the equitable jurisdiction. The courts’ transformation demonstrates the evolution of equity’s doctrines and remedies, changes in its dominant nature and traits, and how fluctuations in the social and political environments have affected its operation and underlying issues in jurisprudence. Equity as a body of law Currently, equity is known as a perceptible body of law, that is now executed by several modern courts. The evolution of the procedures within the courts of equity has guided the administration of equitable principles. Derived from the diverse rules of the early Courts of Chancery, the courts today can exercise equitable jurisdiction whilst upholding their inherent discretionary abilities to react to new forms of injustice. Equity is not an independent body of law; rather it is synonymous with corrective justice and complements the common law to mitigate the inflexibility of its rules. Origin of the