In Re: Soonderjee Nanjee

This was an application made on the 22nd May 1899, on behalf of one Soonderjee Nanjee for a rule calling on the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar to show cause why certain proceedings, then pending in the Court of the Sub-Divisional Officer of North Cachar Hills, against the Petitioner should not be quashed, or in, the alternative why the case should not bo transferred to some other competent Magistrate for disposal. It appears that on the 19th May the Petitioner was arrested under a warrant issued by the Sub-Divisional Officer on a charge of criminal breach of trust in respect of moneys said to have been entrusted to him for the purposes of certain railway works in progress in the year 1897 at a place called Haflong in the North Cachar Hills.

There being, in our opinion, matter stated in the affidavit sworn by the Petitioner, sufficient to justify us in granting the application, we issued a rule on the 22nd May, calling upon the Deputy Commissioner to show cause why the proceedings in question should not bo quashed, or such other order passed with respect thereto, as to this Court might seem fit. We at the same time sent for the records of the case.

On the 2nd June, the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar replied to the Court''s requisition that "the North Cachar Hills are not within the jurisdiction of the High Court," and ho abstained from sending the records of the case as well as from showing cause against the rule. Subsequently the question thus raised was argued before us by Counsel on behalf of the Crown as well as of the Petitioner, and we took time to consider our judgment. This was unavoidable, as the law affecting the question was not fully laid before us at the hearing, and we were consequently obliged to pursue our researches further. The learned counsel for the Crown in support of the position taken by the Deputy Commissioner, relied exclusively on a notification issued by the Chief Commissioner of Assam on the 6th May, 1884, in exercise of the powers conferred on him by sec. 2 of the Assam Frontier Tracts Regulation, 1880, by which he directed that the Code of Criminal Procedure (among other enactments) should cease to be in force in the North Cachar Hills from the date of the notification. It was conceded that, prior to this notification, the North Cachar Hills were within the jurisdiction of this Court; but the contention was that, by virtue of this notification, they were removed from it.

The power of the Supreme Legislative Authority of India to remove any place or territory from the jurisdiction of this Court is, as was said in Empress v. Burah ILR 4 Cal. 172 at p. 179 : P.C. (1878)., "expressly authorized and contemplated by the Statutes and Letters Patent which affect the constitution and jurisdiction of the Court." But the notification of the Chief Commissioner does not purport to affect the jurisdiction of this Court over the North Cachar Hills, and it is quite conceivable that, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the Code of Criminal Procedure, this Court might continue to exercise appellate and revisional powers over the district in question. Indeed, under the Regulation in pursuance of which the notification of the Chief Commissioner was issued, any alteration of the territorial limits of the Court''s jurisdiction would present this difficulty, that the powers vested in the Chief Commissioner by sec. 2, under which the notification was issued, are to be exercised so as not to affect the criminal jurisdiction of any Court over European British subjects. The argument then founded on the notification appears to us to be incomplete and inconclusive.

The Chief Commissionership of Assam, in which the North Cachar Hills are situated, has, however, been brought under the operation of the Scheduled Districts Act (XIV of 1871), by sec. 6 of which the Local Government is empowered from time to time to appoint officers to administer civil and criminal justice within the Chief Commissionership, to regulate the procedure of such officers, and to direct by what authority any jurisdiction incident to the operation of any enactment for the time being in force within the Chief Commissionership shall bo exercised. By a notification issued on the 31st of July, 1884, in exercise of these powers, the Chief Commissioner laid down rules for the administration of justice in the North Cachar Frontier Tract, which includes the North Cachar Hills. By Rule 12, the ordinary administration of criminal justice is vested in the Deputy Commissioner, the Sub-Divisional Officer, and the chief village authority duly authorized in this behalf. Succeeding rules provide for appeals from the decision of the chief village authority and the Sub-Divisional Officer; and then Rule 24 provides as follows:-- "No appeal shall lie, as a matter of right, from any sentence of the Deputy Commissioner of less than three years'' imprisonment. All sentences of three years'' imprisonment or more are appealable to the Chief Commissioner. Appeals to the Chief Commissioner must be preferred within ninety days. It shall be competent to the Chief Commissioner at any time to call for and revise, modify, or reverse, any proceedings of the Deputy Commissioner or his subordinates in any case in which it may seem necessary to do so. Subject to the limitation in respect of European British subjects, to which class the Petitioner does not belong, placed upon the powers of the Chief Commissioner by sec. 2 of the Assam Frontier Tracts Regulation, 1880, we think the effect of these rules, taken in conjunction with the notification of the 6th- May, 1884, was to supersede in the North Cachar Hills all previously existing criminal revisional authority by that of the Chief Commissioner. Assuming therefore, as was argued for the Petitioner, that there still resides in this Court, notwithstanding the annulment of its powers of revision, a power of interference in the proceedings of the Sub-Divisional Officer,--a question on which we think it unnecessary to express an opinion--we think that the powers we were in the first instance asked to exercise in this case, and in the supposed exercise of which we issued the rule, are non-existent; and we therefore discharge the rule.