Legalfundaa

Introduction From 1772 to 1861 in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, we had dual system of courts. What exactly is dual system ? Regulating Act, 1773 established Supreme Court in Calcutta. Similar Court was established in other presidency towns. These court have jurisdiction over British Citizen, Company Servant etc. Their territorial jurisdiction extended to Presidency town of Calcutta i.e City Area. Warren Hastings introduced Adalat System wherein there used to be a Mofussil courts at district level. Some provincial courts and division like Patna, Decca, Murshidabad and Calcutta. Highest court as Sadar Adalat at presidency down. These were the court of company. These two systems were different in many respect. Below are certain differences. Problems due to dual court system Most common problem among them was conflict related to jurisdiction. Take this example, Supreme court had jurisdiction over Calcutta. So people having property over Calcutta but residing in Mo...

Background Warren Hasting back in 1772 introduced plan wherein Collector was overpowered, overburdened. In 1774 plan He tried to overcame some of the deficiencies in earlier plan. One of the reform was separation of judicial and revenue function. In 1786, Lord Cornwallis became Governor General, as usual came up with 1787 plan. We will discuss three major plans/reforms introduced by him JUDICIAL PLAN OF 1787 Below are certain major features of judicial plan of 1787 Unification of Revenue and Judicial Function In times of Warrent Hastings, judicial and revenue functions were separated. This separation of power often lead to conflicts between them. It was felt that these functions should be merged again. Also it was thought that if both the functions are conferred to same authority, then revenue collection would be effective.Another reason was unified power in hand of one person could reduce confusion and chaos. With above reason, judicial and revenue ...

Background Regulating Act of 1773 introduced some reforms. Charter of 1774 introduced Supreme Court in India. However, jurisdiction of court was not demarcated properly. Neither their was clear separation of power between judiciary and governor and council. More often than not, judiciary and executive behaved like typical husband wife, fighting over jurisdiction, fighting over interpretation of of regulating act, fighting over control over company's official etc. In Patna Case, supreme court went further and gave order against law officer of company. Check out this cases here . To solve these existing issues, House of commons (Lok Sabha equivalent in England) appointed a select committe know as Touchet Committee to brainstorm on issues in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. On the submission of Touchet Committee, Brtitish parliament passed Act of Settlement, 1781. Objective Below are objectives stated in preamble To remove doubts in Regulating Act which were causing con...

Introduction From legal history perspective passing of Regulating Act was very important for various reasons. It introduced independent judiciary to us. It also provided for establishment of supreme court. Court also appeared to be impartial. But was it really impartial ? What are problems for the court ? Are those problems still exist ? We will try to answers some of above questions with important cases. Many of the cases are delicate and debatable. We will provide the arguments from both the sides. Trial of Raja Nand Kumar Raja Nandkumar was a big Zamindar and influential person in Bengal. Long story short, He was kind of friend with Warren Hastings initially. But later on relations between them deteriorated. Nand Kumar accused Warren Hastings of taking Bribe. He wrote letter to council regarding this, also it was provided that Warren Hastings took Bribe from another Lady Munni Begam. There was internal rivalry among council. Council member seized this opportunit...

Introduction Regulating Act 1773 introduced some incremental reforms in Colonial administration. Provision of regulating act was discussed in bit detail here . In this act, Crown was empowered to establish Supreme Court in India. As crown was empowered, they did it in 1774 with charter. This article will discuss establishment of supreme court, its constitution, it's jurisdiction and problems with executive i.e Governor and Council.  The important case laws will be discussed in next articles, because those are really interesting cases and writing them here will make this article long to render and slow to render using Jio net. :D  Supreme Court-Constitution British Crown issued a charter in 1774 for establishment of supreme court in Calcutta. See the building below which is not of Supreme court of Calcutta, but current High Court of Calcutta. More or less similar building was there too around 1774 too. This court was to consist of Chief Justice and 3 Pui...

Introduction After 1764 Buxar Victory, Company established unchallenged rule in Bengal. After many efforts, rule of company was exploitative and corrupt.Warren Hastings introduced reforms in 1772. Still there was lot more to be done. British Crown thought it necessary to introduce further reforms and they passed Regulating Act. Regulating act of 1773 have multiple objectives.  Below are some of them Change in Constitution of Company There was court of directors which regulated the affairs of company. Their term was for one year. One year was too short a time to get grasp on company's affairs. So the term of directors increased from one year to 4 year . Also 1/4th of directors were to retired every year. Voting pattern was also changed.Rich people were only granted votes (not good). Those who have shares worth 1000 £ was conferred with 1 vote, one with 3000 £ granted 2 votes, one with 6000 £ shares granted with 3 votes, one with 6000 £ granted with 4 votes. Com...

Reforms Please go through Warren Hasting's plan of 1772 , before going into this. Under the plan of 1772, collector's were excessively burdened. Also there was too much influence of Kazis, Maulavis, Pandits etc ( Is this  valid today also ?). Plan of 1774 introduced some changes. These are as below The whole territories of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa divided into six divisions. These divisions were Calcutta, Burdwan, Murshidabad, Dinaipur, Decca and Patna. Each of these division consisted of number of districts. In Each division provincial council was established In place of collector, Indian officer named Diwan was appointed. Diwan would also act as judge of lower courts and also collect the revenues Provincial Councils given jurisdiction over dispute of 1000 Rs. Appeal from Provincial court would lie in Sadar Diwani Adalat As far as criminal jurisdiction is concerned, Collector stopped interfering.  Good and the bad Indian officer was appointed in Dist...

Look at the guy in picture, and you will find him looking at you. And he is the same who introduced comprehensive judicial reforms. First with plan of 1772 and later with plan of 1772. Background And Early Administration In 1757, Company won battle of Plassey in which company defeated Nawab of Bengal and their French Allies. After victory they placed puppet Nawab.  In 1764, Company won battle of Buxar in which they defeated Nawab of Bengal, Nawab of Oudh and Mughal empire Shah Alam. Above two events strengthen the position of Company, and in next 100 years they established their rule all over India. All this is part of history. What after victory ? Company didn't fought battle for trophy. They want to of course loot (may be earn) money. Since they didn't have enough man force to achieve this, they did it with other means. Mughal administration was broadly divided into two categories. Nizam would have army and administered criminal jurisdiction. D...

Charter of 1753 Earlier Charter of 1726 introduced some improvement like bringing uniformity in presidency town, some ostensible judicial independence, still it fall short of few things. One of them was Judiciary and Governor (And Council) conflicts over jurisdiction. Judiciary used to interpret Charter of 1726 in it’s favour, and executive in their’s. Charter of 1753 brought some improvements. Appointment Earlier Appointment of Mayor was by election by Aldermen, and appointment of Aldermen was done by Mayor. Under this charter Governor and Council were given more power. Mayor was to be appointed by them. Panel of two prominent names were to be submitted by Corporation, out of which Governor and council would select one. Clarity over jurisidiction Earlier there were conflict in all the presidency town over jurisdiction of Judiciary and Executive. Many a time judiciary used to interfere in religious matter and sometime encroach upon executive subject. This was d...

Background By 1726, there were three presidency town ie. Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. In earlier post, we discussed administration in those towns. There was different administration in each of those towns. Laws applied were different, procedures were different and there was no uniformity of application of laws in those towns. Court's decision and laws were not recognised in England, as Company used to apply random laws arbitrarily. Court's before 1726 derived their authority from Company and not from the crown. English cases related to testamentary (Will related) and succession (Specifically intestate) increased with increase in territorial expansion and expansion of business of Company. Population under control of Company and these presidency town also increased. So In short, due to increase in cases, increase in population, increase in business, trade and commerce, and lack of uniformity it was felt that reforms are needed. In these circumstances Charter of 1726 was...

All right, legal administration in Kolkata all started with above building. Brief story goes like this. Englishmen arrived in Kolkata in 1690 under the leadership of Job Charnock at Sutanati, place on the bank of river Hoogly. They constructed fortified factory named Fort William. Initially, they secured Zamindari rights of three villages named Calcutta, Sutanati and Govindpur. Grandson of Aurangzeb was Subedar of Bengal, and Aurangazeb was still ruling from Delhi. Nawab of Murshidabad had considerable power during those time. Mughal granted company the rights to administer their settlement. Slowly slowly Company started ruling nearby areas. They started to administer the justice under their zamindari. And they introduced India to the post of collector..!! Collector the superman In 1699, Calcutta became the presidency town. In 1700 they introduce the officer named as collector. Collector was like superman in those days too, because of below reason He was member of Gov...

Story About Bombay In 1534, Portuguese acquired Bombay from Local Hindu Raja. Then Bombay was given to King Charles II as dowry in his sister's marriage to in 1661. In 1668 Bombay was given to rent to East India Company for a rent of 10  £ . By today's exchange it would be around 100 Rs. So  yes, Bombay was given on rent to East India Company for the price of 10 Vada-Pav. Administration of Bombay was subordinate to Surat back then. After renting it, company issued a charter in 1668 granting company some rights to make laws to deal with Bombay. Like Administration in Madras, development of Earlier administration could be studied in 3 stages. First Stage: 1670-1683 (Aungier Eara) During this period Bombay was subordinated to Surat. The Governor of Surat was ex-officio Governor of Bombay, though Bombay had Deputy Governor and Council. Gerald Aungier brought some changes in Administration of justice. Two plans, i.e plan of 1670 and plan of 1672 made progress in so...