PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 109
subject to the permission granted by the Government of India, the man could be tried twice. Having regard to the difficulties mentioned, namely, of allowing civil courts to try all offences and having regard to the fact that there are the provisions contained in clauses 125 and 127, I do not envisage that there is likely to be far more cases which can be described as containing miscarriage of justice. I think we have taken enough precaution to prevent that sort of thing happening and therefore I submit, that having regard to these provisions and having regard to section 70 there can be no objection to this part of the Bill.
I might also mention—I think reference was made to it by somebody—that clause 70 of this Bill is virtually a repetition of section 41 of the British Army Act. There also they have a similar provision. In the U.S.A. the provisions are more extensive. After all we have to look at this matter from the point of view of the offender, not so much from the point of view of the complainant. In all these cases the offender would be a solider and the question is whether the soldier who is accused of any particular offence and would have been tried by a civil court, if he had not been a soldier, would not get justice at the court martial.
My friend said that the men who sit in the court martial are not trained lawyers. I do not know but I can say from my experience that I have met some Judge Advocates-General who were as good as the lawyers whom we meet in courts, if not better. However, after all a soldier cannot expect to get better justice for having committed civilian offences than he is ordinarily expected to get when he commits a military offence. If he gets the same justice as he gets in the civil courts I do not think there need be any cause for complaint. My friend need not have much confusion about it. I do not think that his criticism is well placed.
Shri S. N. Sinha : What are those cases in which the criminal courts and court-martial have got concurrent jurisdiction ? Under clause 125 the choice has to be exercised.
Dr. Ambedkar : I cannot say. That requires some kind of exhaustive compilation. There are undoubtedly some offences