66 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
in office at home, not even the Law Officers, can be expected to have so comprehensive and clear a view of the Indian system of law, as to know readily and familiarly the bearings of each part of it on the rest.” [1]
The other motive was to create a strong central government to deal effectively with the European settlers in the country. It is to be noted that if the native population suffered under the uncertainties of law, the British population lived under the most galling restrictions. The revelations of oppressions by Englishmen practised, in the early days of British Rule, contained in the report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1771 to inquire into the affairs of the East India Company, were followed by very stringent laws governing the entry and residence of private British subjects in India. No British subject of European birth was allowed to reside in India beyond 10 miles from any one of the principal settlements without having previously obtained a special license from the Company or the Governor-General of India or the Governor of the principal settlement in question. [2] The Court of Directors of the Company, subject to revision of the Board of Control, [3] were empowered to refuse such licenses [4] and the Governments in India were strictly enjoined not to sanction the residence of British subjects on their own authorities except under special circumstances [5] and were authorized, in cases they deemed proper, to declare licenses otherwise valid as void. [6 ] Counterfeiting licenses [7] and unlicensed residence [8] were made crimes punishable with fine or imprisonment; and persons who were dismissed from, and who had resigned service, were declared guilty of illicit trade if they lingered beyond the 10-mile limit after their time had expired. [9] Unlicensed British subjects were made liable to be deported, [10] and such as were licensed were required to register themselves in the court of the district in which they resided. [11] Subjected as they were to the regulations of the Local Government [12] they were made amenable to justice in India as well as in Great Britain for all illegal acts done in British
1 Quoted in Herbert Cowell’s The History of the Constitution of Courts and Legislative Authorities in India, Calcutta.
2 33 Geo III, c. 52, s. 98. 7 Ibid., s. 120.
3 Ibid, s. 38. 8 33 Geo. III, c. 52, s. 131.
4 Ibid, s. 33. 9 Ibid., s. 134.
5 Ibid., s. 37. 10 53 Geo III, c. 155, s. 104.
6 53 Geo. III, c. 155, s. 36. 11 Ibid., s. 108.
12 Ibid., s. 35.