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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes

Appeals from both these courts lay to the District or City Courts. District Judges presided
over District Courts and decided civil suits with the assistance of Indians well-versed
in Law.

Above the District Courts were the four Provincial Courts of Appeal at Calcutta, Murshidabad, Dacca
and Patna. These courts were also to supervise the working of District Courts and on the basis of
their report the Sadr Diwani Adalat could suspend the District Judges. In certain cases it had original
jurisdiction also. These courts presided over by English Judges heard appeals in suits involving
disputes up to l ,000 rupees. Next in order of gradation came the Sadr Diwani Adalat at Calcutta
presided over by the Governor-General and his Council which heard appeals from Provincial Courts
in cases involving over l ,000 rupees. Appeals lay to the King-in-Council in disputes involving more
than £ 5,000. Regulations also laid down the procedure to be followed in these courts and also the
qualifications of Indian officers attached to these courts. The Mohammedan law was administered in
respect to Mohammedans and Hindu law in respect to Hindus.
Even the European subjects in the districts were made amenable to the jurisdiction of the local civil
courts. Europeans intending to reside in the districts away from Calcutta were not given licences
until they agreed to submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the district civil courts. Further,
Government servants were made answerable before the civil courts for the acts done by them in their
official capacity. Thus Cornwallis proclaimed the principle of Sovereignty of Law in India.
Important changes were introduced in the field of criminal administration. The District Faujdari
Adalats presided over by Indian officers were abolished. The District Judge was given magisterial
powers to order the arrest of criminals and disturbers of peace. The petty cases were decided by the
District Judge himself while for serious offences he committed the culprits to the four circuit courts.
The provincial circuit courts of appeal which heard appeals in civil cases also worked as criminal
circuit courts. The judges of these circuit courts toured their divisions twice a year and decided criminal
cases with the assistance of Indian Qazis and Muftis. These courts could pass sentences of death or
life imprisonment subject to the confirmation of the Sadr Nizamat Adalat which was the highest
court of appeal in criminal cases. The Governor-General enjoyed the general power of pardon or
commutation of punishment.

Reform of Criminal Law: If Warren Hastings had asserted the right of the Company’s
government to interfere with the administration of law, Cornwallis maintained that the
Company had the right to reform the criminal law itself. The Mohammedans take their
criminal law to be divinely ordained.

During 1790-93 Cornwallis introduced certain changes in the criminal law which were regularised
by a Parliamentary Act of 1797. In December 1790 a rule was framed for the guidance of Mohammedan
law officers that in all trials of murder they were to be guided by the intention of the murderer either
evident or fairly inferable and not by the manner or instrument of perpetration. Further, in cases of
murder, the will of the heir or kindred of the deceased were not to be allowed to operate in the grant
of pardon or in the demand of compensation money as a price of blood. Again, the usual punishment
of amputation of limbs of body was replaced by temporary hard labour or fine and imprisonment
according to circumstances of the case. Regulation IX of 1793 amended the law of evidence by providing
that ‘the religious persuasions of witnesses shall not be considered as a bar to the conviction or
condemnation of a prisoner’. Thus non-Muslims could give testimony against Muslims in criminal
cases—not permitted so far according to the Muslim law of evidence.

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