AND THE LORD SAID UNTO— 33
charter or letters patent, “to erect and establish a Supreme Court of Judicature at Bombay, with full power to exercise such civil, criminal, admiralty, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, both as to natives and British subjects, and to be invested with such powers and authorities, privileges and immunities, for the better administration of the same, and subject to the same limitations, restrictions, and control, in the said town and island of Bombay and the limits thereof, and the territories subordinate thereto, and within the territories which then were or thereafter might be subject to or dependent upon the Government of Bombay, as the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort Williams in Bengal, by virtue of any law then in force and unrepealed, did consist of, was invested with, or subject to, within the said Fort Williams, or the places subject to or dependent upon the Government thereof; provided always, that the Governor and Council at Bombay, and the Governor-General at Fort Williams aforesaid, should enjoy the same exemption, and no other, from the authority of the Supreme Court of Judicature to be there erected, as were enjoyed by the said Governor-General and Council at Fort Williams aforesaid for the time being, from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Judicature there.” That is the only proviso for the exemption of the Governor and Council of Bombay; but the Governor-General and Council of Fort Williams are not only exempted from the jurisdiction of the Court, *but have by the 21st Geo. III, the power of exempting others also from its jurisdiction by their order in writing; which approaches very nearly to the latter in question.
In pursuance of this Act of 4th Geo. IV. [c. 71] His Majesty erected the Supreme Court of Judicature at Bombay, by his Letters Patent [Morley’s Dig. Vol. II. p. 638]. By these letters he gave to it various powers and authorities which are exercised by his ordinary
*21st Geo. 3, c. 70,s 2. “If any person or persons be impleaded in any action or process, civil or criminal, in the said Supreme Court, for any act or acts done by order of the said Governor-General and Council, in writing, he or they may plead the general issue, and give such order in evidence; which said order, with proof that the act or acts done have or has been done according to the purport of the same, shall amount to a sufficient justification of the said acts, and the defendant shall be fully justified, acquitted and discharged from all and every suit, action and process whatsoever, civil or criminal in the said Court”.
By section the third of the same Act it is provided, that with respect to such order of the Governor-General and Council as shall extend to any British subject or subjects, the court shall have and retain as full and competent jurisdiction as if the Act had never been made.