118 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
party or parties entrusted with the serving of it; and the magistrate is thereon to issue a warrant under his official seal and signature for the apprehension of the said Brahmin or Brahmins specifying the misdemeanor and contumacy with which he or they stand charged ; and the execution of the warrant is to be committed to peons of the Mahomedan religion, nor is any Hindoo to be sent on such duty. On the Brahmin or Brahmins against whom the warrant shall have been issued being brought before the magistrate, he or they are to be dealt with, in the mode prescribed in Section 5, Regulation IX, 1793, respecting persons charged with crimes or misdemeanors ; and if it shall appear to the magistrate on the previous enquiry, which by the said section he is himself directed to make, that the misdemeanor or misdemeanors charged, (that is, the constructing of the koorh, or being prepared to wound or slay the women or children, according as either or both of these acts shall have been charged) were actually committed, and that there are grounds for suspecting the prisoner or the prisoners respectively to have been concerned, either as a principal or an accomplice, in the perpetration of either or both of these acts ;. the magistrate shall cause him or them to be commuted to prison or held to bail, (according as the parties shall appear to have been principals or accomplices) to take his or their trial at the next session of the court or circuit, and shall bind over the informant or complainant, and the witnesses, to appear at the trial, in the manner prescribed in the aforesaid section.
Process of trial and the punishment to be inflicted, for the commission of the aforesaid offences
III. The court of circuit shall conduct the trial of Brahmin or Brahmins charged with the above offences, in the manner prescribed in Regulation IX, 1793 and XVI, 1795, in respect to the other offences, but as the Mahomedan law cannot adequately apply to offences of this local nature, it is therefore hereby provided and ordered, that where in me opinion of the court of circuit, the charge of being a principal in respect to the constructing of a koorh, or to having been prepared to wound or slay the women or children, shall be proved, the said court shall sentence the prisoner to the payment of a fine equal to the amount of his annual income, which is to be estimated according to the best information that they may be able to procure respecting it; and on proof to the court’s satisfaction of the prisoner’s being guilty only as an accomplice, he shall be sentenced to the payment of a fine equal to one-fourth of his estimated annual income. In all cases of parties being sentenced to the payment of such fines, they are to be committed to, and are to remain in jail until the amount thereof be paid, or until they shall have delivered to the court of circuit, or, after the said court’s departure, to the magistrate, full and ample malzamines or security, to pay the same within six months from the date of their release ; and such parties, before their enlargement, either in consequence