Court should have full power and authority to exercise and perform all Civil, Criminal, Admiralty, and Ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and to form and establish such rules of practice, and such rules for the process of the said Court, and to do all such other things as should be found necessary for the administration of justice and the due execution of all or any of the powers which, by the said Charter, should or might be granted or committed to the said Court; and also should be at all times a Court of Record, and should be a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery, in and for the said town of Calcutta and Factory of Fort William in Bengal aforesaid, and the limits thereof, and the Factories subordinate thereto. The Governor-General and Council, and the Judges of the Supreme Court, were, by the 38th section of the same Act, authorised to act as Justices of the Peace, and to hold Quarter Sessions.

The Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal was accordingly established under the above Statute, by Royal Charter dated the 26th of March 1774; and it is under this Charter that the Supreme Court is now held. The Bengal Charter of Justice will be found inserted in the second volume of this work; but it will be useful here to state shortly some of its provisions. By the 13th section, the Supreme Court at Calcutta was empowered to try and determine all actions and suits arising in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and all pleas, real, personal, or mixed, arising against the United Company and the Mayor and Aldermen of Calcutta, and against any of the King's subjects resident in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, or who should have resided there, or should have debts, effects, or estates, real or personal, within the same, and against the executors and administrators of such subjects, and against any other person who should at the time of such action being brought, or when any action should have accrued, be or have been employed in the service of the said Company, or the said Mayor and Aldermen, or of any other of the King's subjects, and against all other persons, inhabitants of India, residing in Bengal, Behar, or Orissa, upon any contract or agreement in writing with any of the King's subjects, where the cause of action should exceed the sum of 500 current rupees, and when such inha

bitants should have agreed in the said contract, that, in case of dispute, the matter should be determined in the said Supreme Court. The same section limited the jurisdiction thus given as follows; viz. that the said Court should not try any suit against any person who should never have been resident in Bengal, Behar, or Orissa, or against any person who should, at the time of action brought, be resident in Great Britain or Ireland, unless such suit or action against such person so then resident in Great Britain or Ireland should be commenced within two years after the cause of action arose, and the sum to be recovered should not be of greater value than 30,000 rupees. By the 18th section of the Charter the Supreme Court was constituted a Court of Equity, as the Court of Chancery in England. The 19th section constituted it a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery, for Calcutta and Fort William, and the Factories subordinate thereto, with power to summon grand and petit juries, and to administer criminal justice as in the Courts of Oyer and Terminer in England, giving it jurisdiction over all offences committed in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, by any subject of His Majesty, or any person in the service of the United Company, or of any of the King's subjects. The 22d section. empowered the Supreme Court to exercise Ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, as the same was exercised in the diocese of London, and to grant probates and administrations to the estates of British subjects dying within the said provinces. The 25th section empowered the Court to appoint guardians of infants and of insane persons, and of their estates; and by the 26th section the said Supreme Court was appointed to be a Court of Admiralty in and for the provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and to hear and determine all causes and matters, civil and maritime, and to have jurisdiction in crimes maritime, according to the course of the Admiralty in England. An appeal lay, under sections 30-33, from the decisions of the Supreme Court at Fort William to the King in Council. This portion of the Charter will be more particularly noticed hereafter in the section treating of Appeals from the Courts in India to this country.

Shortly after the grant of this Charter arose those unfortu

nate contentions between the Governor-General and Council and the Judges of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, which, whoever may have been in the wrong, were certainly very discreditable to both parties. The unanimity which existed, however, between the disputants in every measure throughout these unhappy disagreements, proves that the difference arose, not from personal feelings, or from a desire of an undue extension of their several powers, but from a defect in the law, arising from the obscurity of the Statute, of which it has been well remarked, "that the Legislature had passed the Act of the 13th Geo. III. c. 63, without fully investigating what it was that they were legislating about; and that if the Act did not say more than was meant, it seemed at least to have said more than was well understood." 1

The Legislature accordingly intervened; and, by the preamble to the 21st Geo. III. c. 70, and sections 2, 8, 9, and 10, of that Act, explained and defined the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, declaring that the said Court had no jurisdiction over the Governor-General and Council for any act or order made or done by them in their public capacity; that if any Natives should be impleaded in the Supreme Court for any act done by order of the Governor and Council in writing, the said order might be given in evidence under the general issue, and should amount to a sufficient justification; that the Supreme Court should have no 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 of the Governor-General and Council; that no person should be subject to the jurisdiction of the Court by reason of being a landowner, landholder, or farmer of land or of land-rent; that no person should be so subject to the jurisdiction of the said Court, by reason of his being employed by the Company or by the Governor-General and Council, or on account of his being employed by a native

1 Letter from the Judges of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, dated Oct. 16, 1830. Fifth Appendix to the Third Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1831, p. 1284, 4to. edit.

of Great Britain, in any matter of dealing or contract between party or parties, except in actions for wrongs or trespasses, and also except in civil suits by agreement of parties, in writing, to submit the same to the decision of the said Court. Section 17 of this important Act also reserved their peculiar laws to Hindús and Muhammadans in certain civil matters, as hereafter will be noticed; and the 24th section provided that no action for wrong or injury should lie in the Supreme Court against any person whatsoever exercising a judicial office in the Country Courts, for any judgment, decree, or order of the said Court, nor against any person for any act done by or in virtue of the order of the said Court.

By the 29th section of the 26th Geo. III. c. 57, all servants of the East-India Company, and all His Majesty's subjects resident in India, were made subject to the Courts of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery, for all criminal offences committed in any part of Asia, Africa, or America, beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan, within the limits of the Company's trade.

The 30th section of the same Act declared that the Governor or President and Council of Fort St. George, in their Courts of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery, and also the Mayor's Court at Madras, according to their respective judicatures, should have jurisdiction, as well Civil as Criminal, over all British subjects whatsoever residing in the territories of the East-India Company on the Coast of Coromandel, or in any other part of the Carnatic or in the Northern Circars, or within the territories of the Soubah of the Deccan, the Nabob of Arcot, or the Rajah of Tanjore.

By the 33d Geo. III. c. 52. s. 67, all His Majesty's subjects, as well servants of the Company as others, were declared to be amenable to all Courts of Justice, both in India and Great Britain, of competent jurisdiction to try offences committed in India, for all criminal offences committed in the territories of any native prince or state, or against their persons or properties, or the persons or properties of any of their subjects or people, in the same manner as if the same had been committed

within the territories directly subject to and under the British Government in India.1

Section 156 of the latter Act extended the Admiralty jurisdiction of the Supreme Court at Calcutta given under the Charter; and the Court was empowered, by means of juries of British subjects, to try all offences committed on the high seas. By the 37th Geo. III. c. 142. s. 1, the number of Judges of the Supreme Court at Calcutta was limited to three.

The Mayors' Courts at Madras and Bombay existed until the year 1797, when they were abolished and superseded by Recorders' Courts, established under the 37th Geo. III. c. 142. These Recorders' Courts consisted of the Mayor, three Aldermen, and a Recorder, who was to be appointed by His Majesty; and their jurisdiction extended to Civil, Criminal, Ecclesiastical, and Admiralty cases. They were empowered to establish rules of practice, and they were to be Courts of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery, for Fort St. George and Bombay; and their jurisdiction was to extend over British subjects resident within the British territories subject to the Governments of Madras and Bombay respectively, as well as those residing in the territories of native princes in alliance with those Governments. Their jurisdiction was also brought within the restrictions of the 21st Geo. III. c. 70; the laws of the Hindús and Muhammadans were reserved to Natives; and an appeal lay from their decisions to the King in Council.

The Recorder's Court at Madras was abolished by the 39th and 40th Geo. III. c. 79, and a Supreme Court of Judicature was erected in its place, consisting of a Chief Justice and two puisne Judges. The powers vested in the Recorder's Court were transferred to, and to be exercised by, the Supreme Court, which was also directed to have the like jurisdiction, and to be invested with the same powers, and subject to the same restrictions, as the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal.

This section is a re-enactment of the 44th section of the 24th Geo. III. c. 25, which was passed in 1784.

2 Natives may now sit on juries.