HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN Vs. BURAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has been brought under the following circumstances: In the year 1869 the Indian Legislature passed an Act (No. XXII. of 1869), purporting, first, to remove a district called the Garo Hills from the jurisdiction of the Courts of Civil and Criminal Judicature, and from the control of the offices of revenue, constituted by the regulations of the Bengal Code and the Acts passed by any Legislature then or theretofore established in British India, and from the law prescribed for such Courts and offices by such Regulations and Acts; and, secondly, to vest the administration of civil and criminal justice, within the same territory, in such officers as the Lieutenant--Governor of Bengal might, for the purpose of tribunals of first instance, or of reference and appeal, from time to time appoint. This Act was to come into operation on such day as the Lieutenant--Governor of Bengal should, by notification in the Calcutta Gazette, direct. By the 9th section the Lieutenant--Governor was empowered " from time to time, by notification in the Calcutta Gazette," to " extend, mutatis mutandis, all or any of the provisions contained in the other sections to the Jaintia Hills, the Naga Hills, and such portion of the Khasi Hills as might, for the time being, form part of British India" being, as their Lordships understand, a mountainous district, conterminous towards the east with the Garo Mills.

(2.) THE Lieutenant--Governor of Bengal, by notification in the manner prescribed by this Act, fixed the time at which it should come into operation in the Garo Hills; and afterwards, by another notification published in the Calcutta Gazette on the 14th of October, 1871, he extended all its provisions to the district of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, declaring the administration of civil and criminal justice within that district to be vested in the Commissioner of Assam, subject to the general direction and control of the Lieutenant--Governor; and adding, that the Commissioner should exercise the powers of the High Court in the civil and criminal cases triable in the Courts of the district; provided, that no sentence of death should be carried out without the sanction of the Lieutenant--Grovernor, and that it should be competent for the Lieutenant--Governor to call for the record of any criminal or civil case, and to pass thereon such orders as to him might seem fit; and that the Deputy Commissioner of the district, and his assistants, the native chiefs and officers, and the subordinate officers of Government, should exercise the same powers as they had hitherto exercised, until otherwise directed.

(3.) THE ground on which the majority of the High Court assumed jurisdiction was, that the 9th section of the Act of 1869, purporting to authorize the Lieutenant--Governor of Bengal to extend the Act of 1869 to the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, was in excess of the legislative powers of the Governor--General in Council.