Indian Legal History - Warren Hastings Plan of 1774


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 District level to look after the adminstration
  • For an appeal from lower court, earlier person has to travel to Calcutta, now appeal could be heard in provincial headquarters
  • Interference of Collector, who typically was Englishmen stopped
  • Burden on Collector reduced.
  • Sometimes provincial council would abuse their power.
Decide good and bad from above.

Thanks.
Legalfundaa

Comments

Post a Comment

Followers

Popular posts from this blog

Privileges and Immunities to Administration in Suits

Introduction You know government can enter into contracts. Government can start some business. It mean government can sue other people, or you can sue the government. Before you initiate a legal proceedings against government, or even after legal proceedings are initiated, there are some relaxations to government.( OK, we will use Government/Administration as per our discretion interchangeably in this post, but they will mean the same ). So, it might happen that to prove something you may need a document or evidence, but government may be given exemption to produce evidence in that regard. Let's take one example.  General law is that burden of proof is on prosecution. Meaning, the one who accuses other  needs to prove the crime/offence by other. But when government accuses you of Sedition, you have to prove your innocence, burden of proof is on YOU. This is scary, as many times government in power just accuses people of sedition who opposes their ideas/policies, and put opponents i
Read more

Legal History-Administration of Justice in Bombay (1668-1726)

Image
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 sou
Read more

Civil Procedure Code - Summoning and attendance of Witness (Order 16)

Image
There are tons of stages after plaint/WS is submitted and final judgment is given. Below are certain stages. In this blog We will deal with Order 16 i.e Summoning and attendance of witness. Order 16 have 21 rules. These rules mainly deals with How to summon the witness ? Who can summon the witness ? What if witness do not appear after summons ? How Summons are to be served ? Who will bear the cost when witness appears? All in all, it deals with below things: Now party can give a list of witness to court to be summoned or court can sometime on it's own accord order the attendance of witness or production of documents from Witness as per Rule 14 of Order 21. General Procedure When Court summon on the request of parties, procedure is something like First party will submit the list of witness to court withing 15 days of settlement of issues. Court will issue summons based on list. Witness can attend without summons also as per Rule 1A Court issues the
Read more