36 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of the jurisdiction of the court should not be entertained. There were two distinct powers of jurisdiction vested in the court, that of Oyer and Terminer and of the Court of King’s Bench. The former was limited; but the latter was not, but extended throughout all the Provinces under this Government. It was his opinion, that the Supreme Court possessed authority to grant information anywhere in the Company’s territories, for any act for which the Court of King’s Bench could issue one in England. The Court had a complete power of punishing any native, foreigner, or other person whosoever, contempt or violent obstruction of the process of the court, in the same way as the Court of King’s Bench. It would be perfectly anomalous to say that it did not possess the power of punishing that by the more deliberate mode of information, which could be effected by the mere summary process of attachment. He could not confine it to that question, seeing that they possessed the jurisdiction of the Court of King’s Bench. He did not know that the Court might enter into a criminal information against any person whatever. He should state, however, that such an authority should be executed sparingly, and with caution. This would set the question of the grounds of the criminal information at rest, as their jurisdiction over Mendy Ally Khan did not depend on his being an inhabitant of Calcutta.” He then proceeds to say, “that as some of those persons were not subject to indictment, and those subject to it were the least guilty parties, he would not grant a criminal information, but thought it better to leave it altogether to an indictment.”
In this passage the power to try indictments is clearly separated, both from the right to issue attachment for contempt, and from that of granting criminal informations. Indictment can be tried by the Supreme Court only in its character of a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and its power to try them is bounded by the terms of the exception; but the power of punishing contempt is inherent in all courts. The power of proceeding by criminal information is inherent in the Court of King’s Bench and is transferred, without limitation as to persons, by the terms of the charter to the Supreme Court.
Numerous cases might be drawn from the books, if authority were wanted, to inform your Lordships that, that power does exist