AND THE LORD SAID UNTO— 27
obligations to God, to the King, and to themselves, to refuse to administer justice according to what they should deem to be law, in compliance with such notions as those who had thus approached them might from time to time entertain of what they should call State policy.
That, while a petition to the above effect was preparing to be transmitted to England, Sir Charles Harcourt Chambers, then acting as Chief Justice of the said Supreme Court, suddenly died on the 13th of October 1828.
The petition then proceeded at considerable length to explain the motives that influenced the petitioner and his colleague during these proceedings to impugn the conduct of the Governor and Council, and to show the benefit of the Supreme Court having the power to issue the writ of habeas corpus in the manner they claimed. It ultimately prayed, that it might therefore please His Majesty to take the premises into his Royal and most gracious consideration, and to give such commands concerning the same as to His Majesty’s Royal wisdom should seem meet, for the due vindication and protection of the dignity and lawful authority of His Majesty’s Supreme Court of Judicature at Bombay.
The case of Moro Ragonath [1 Knapp, 5] which is allued to in the petition may be thus briefly stated; on the 25th of August 1828, writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, directed to Pandoorung Ramchander for the production of the body of Moro Ragonath, his ward, was moved for before Mr. Justice Grant, the petitioner, at his chambers, on the affidavit of Dinkar Gopal Dew, which stated that Moro Ragonath had been confined for nearly a year, and was still kept in confinement by Pandoorung Ramchander against his will, and under circumstances attended with great hardship and cruelty. This motion was opposed by the Advocate General, on the ground that Pandoorung Ramchander and Moro Ragonath were natives, residing at Poona, and not amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The granting of the writ was postponed for various reasons until the 30th of August, during which time additional affidavits were put in, and in these it was stated that Moro Ragonath having made his escape from Pandoorung Ramchander on the 12th of July, was retaken and sent back again to his custody by persons acting under the order and by the directions of John