practitioners in the Courts, were Natives equally ignorant with themselves. The papers in an appeal from the Supreme Courts were obtained by the Attorney who conducted the case in India, and forwarded by him to an agent in England: the Supreme Court Attorney was thus a link of connexion between the appellant and the Privy Council. No such connecting link existed in the case of the appellants from the Sudder Dewanny Adawluts: the transcript records were prepared by the Government, and transmitted to England; and when once placed in the hands of Government, the Vakeels of the appellants were of no further use; and they themselves being ignorant that agents were requisite in England, or that any other steps were necessary to be taken, the appeals in consequence stood still. The parties in India having conformed, to the utmost of their ability, to the Regulations of the Government, concluded, that when the documents under the seal of the Court were transmitted through the Indian Government to this country, the Court of the Sovereign in Council would take the case into consideration, and return a decision thereon. Such expecta

tion was clearly in conformity with the practice that obtained, as regarded Madras, up to the year 1818, before which time as we have seen, an appeal was admitted from the Madras Sudder Adawlut to the Governor-General in Council at Calcutta. When the documents, properly attested &c., were sent to Calcutta, a decree was in due time returned, confirming or reversing that of the Sudder Adawlut at Madras, without any thing being required to be done by the parties. Thus, when appeal cases were transmitted to England, the parties patiently waited for a decision, but in vain; and in many instances the property in dispute became eaten up by public and private debts, and the litigants were either ruined or greatly impoverished.'

Whilst things remained in this state, the right of appeal was in fact productive of harm instead of benefit, inasmuch as the parties made deposits, which were not released, even in cases

See Mr. R. Clarke's Evidence before the House of Lords in 1830, No. 1524, p. 178, 4to. Edit.

where the suits had been compromised. Mr. R. Clarke, in his Evidence before the House of Lords in 18301, mentions four cases in which the parties had compromised their suits in India: they sent notice of their compromise to England, through the same channel by which they had forwarded their appeals. In one case the total amount litigated was held in deposit, and in the others the sum deposited for fees, which amounted to about £1000 was held in deposit. The restoration of the deposits was refused to the parties in India, because the Courts there had no knowledge of what had been done by the Court appealed to in England with regard to the suits.

From the year 1773, when, as we have seen, the power of appeal from the Supreme Courts in India was originally allowed, until the year 1833, when the Statute 3d & 4th Will. IV. c. 41, was passed, about fifty appeals were instituted, the first being in 1799.

It was about the year 1826 that the late Sir Alexander Johnston, while engaged in some antiquarian researches2, discovered that there were a large number of cases involving questions of native law of great importance, which had been in appeal from the Courts in India before the Privy Council for a great many years, and that they had not been heard in consequence of the ignorance of the parties as to the proceedings necessary to be taken in this country. Subsequently to this an application was made by the Court of Directors to the Privy Council for permission to bring forward appeals on behalf of suitors; and the transcripts of the proceedings in India, accumulated in the Privy Council Office, were sent to the East-India House, for the purpose of being examined, and a report drawn up. The East-India Company's Solicitor accordingly sent in a report to the Honourable Court, stating the cause of action, the names of the parties, the

1 See Mr. R. Clarke's Evidence before the House of Lords in 1830, No. 1522, p. 177, 4to. Edit.

2 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. III. Appendix 2,

p. x. note.

amount sued for, and all other requisite particulars respecting each appeal, of which the records had been received at the office of the Privy Council: the report was forwarded to the Board of Controul for the purpose of being laid before the Privy Council.

It appeared, on examination of this report, that the earliest appeal from Bengal was on a decision that was pronounced in the year 1799. Twenty-one appeals in all were pending from Bengal, ten from Madras, and seventeen from Bombay. None of those from Madras and Bombay were of earlier date than the year 1818, according to the provisions of the Regulations1; no appeals having been instituted from Bombay whilst the Regulations of 1812 allowing the right were in force.

The Honourable Court of Directors, having thus taken the first step in the right direction towards remedying the failure of justice, several learned persons were consulted as to the best means of forwarding the appeals. Accordingly, in the year 1832, Sir James Macintosh, Sir Edward Hyde East, and Sir Alexander Johnston, were requested by the Board of Controul to report on the best course to be adopted in order to cause all the old appeals to be put in train for decision, and Mr. Richard Clarke, formerly of the Madras Civil Service, was engaged to arrange all the papers connected with the different appeals; and a report was drawn up, and submitted to the Court of Directors, of all the appeals which were then lying in the Privy Council Office, and in which no proceedings were being taken by the parties.

The attention of the legislature had now been called to the subject, and the 3d & 4th Will. IV. c. 41, was passed on the 14th August 1833. This important Act established the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and laid down certain rules of procedure, which will be recurred to in the proper place; parties in appeals from India, were insured a certain and speedy hearing; and efficiency was given to the pre-existing Laws and Regulations, which had, by long experience, been found wholly ineffective, and indeed, as we have

1 Mad. Reg. VIII. 1818. Bomb. Reg. V. 1818.

seen, productive of something more than a mere failure of justice. The appointment of retired Indian Judges under this Act as Assessors of the Court brought an amount of knowledge and experience to bear upon most of the questions arising in Indian appeals, which could not by any other means have been rendered so readily available.' The East-India Company were also authorised to appoint Agents and Counsel, to conduct the appeals from the Sudder Dewanny Adawluts, and bring them to a hearing, and to watch over the interests of the parties. All the long-standing appeals, and those admitted by the Sudder Dewanny Adawluts before the 1st of January 1846, were affected by this Act, and the orders made in pursuance of it: in the year 1845, however, the enactment of the 8th & 9th Vict. c. 30, took the management of all appeals from such Courts, admitted after that date, out of the hands of the East-India Company.

It is surprising the Government of this country should never have thought it necessary to appoint any of the retired Judges of the East-India Company's Service to sit in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as Assessors in Indian appeal cases, since, in appeals from the decisions of the Company's Courts, the peculiar experience of the Judges of the Queen's Courts is necessarily applicable to such cases only as involve points of Hindú or Muhammadan law. A large proportion of the suits in the Courts of the East-India Company, including almost all those which relate to landed property in the Mofussil, are connected with the revenue; but the Statute 21st Geo. III. c. 70, s. 8, expressly forbids the Supreme Court at Calcutta from having jurisdiction "in any matter concerning the revenue, or concerning any act or acts ordered or done in the collection thereof, according to the usage and practice of the country, or the Regulations ;" and the Charters of the Supreme Courts at Madras and Bombay contain similar prohibitory clauses (Mad. Chart. s. 23; Bomb. Chart. s. 30). Again, all other questions which turn upon the Regulation law applying to persons and things without the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts can obviously only be determined by the Courts of the East-India Company. It follows then, of course, that in every one of these instances the subject matter of an appeal from the decision of a Company's Court is necessarily as foreign to the present Assessors as to the other members of the Judicial Committee, whilst a Judge of the Chief Courts of the East-India Company would at once be able to remove the doubts and difficulties by which such questions are usually surrounded.

2. INSTITUTION OF APPEALS IN INDIA.

It now becomes necessary to say a few words respecting the mode in which appeals are instituted in India, and of the necessary proceedings in that country.

The appeals from the Supreme Courts are under the authority of the Statutes and Charters, and are regulated by the practice of such Courts.

By the Bengal Charter of Justice, in section 30 et seq., certain rules are laid down regulating the admission of appeals from the Supreme Court of that Presidency: these rules are still in force, excepting that the amount of the matter in dispute for which an appeal might be instituted has been altered, for all the Courts in India, to the minimum sum of 10,000 Company's rupees.

The rules now in operation are as follows:-The person aggrieved by any judgment, decree, or decretal order, must present his petition of appeal to the Supreme Court, stating the cause of appeal; and the Supreme Court is empowered to award that the said judgment, decree, rule, or order, shall be carried into execution, or that sufficient security shall be given for the performance of the said judgment, decree, rule, or order; and if the Court shall think fit to order the execution of the same, security shall be taken from the other party for the performance of the order or decree of Her Majesty in Council; and in all cases security is to be given for costs, and for the performance of the judgment or order on appeal. The appeal having then been admitted, the Supreme Court is to certify and transmit, under the seal of the Court, to the Privy Council, a copy of all the evidence, proceedings, judgments, decrees, and orders, in the cause appealed; and no appeals are to be allowed by the Court, unless the petition of appeal be presented within six months from the day of pronouncing the judgment, decree, or decretal order complained of.

The Charters of Madras and Bombay contain similar rules, excepting that, in both, the words "judgment or determination" are used, instead of "judgment, decree, or decretal order,”