44 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
King’s courts are subject, without exception or distinction, to the control of the Court of King’s Bench. But the laws of England are not the laws of India. There is a code of laws which the King has thought fit, by the consent of his Parliament, to continue or enact and which are not the King’s laws in the sense that the laws of England are. There is therefore no analogy between the circumstances. The Courts in England are all drawn from the same source, they all flow in the same channel, they all apply to the same persons. But the laws in India are derived from a different source; they attach upon different classes of men; they have nothing in common with the laws of England. To confer upon the English courts of law existing locally in Calcutta or Bombay a control over the native laws and courts, would be a species of anomalous judicial administrtion, which we trust will never be sanctioned by the British Legislature.
Previous to the estalishment of the Supreme Court in the year 1773, there were Mayors Courts at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The statute of 13th Geo. III. (c. 63) authorized the institution of a Supreme Court only at Calcutta. The language of that Act, and the charter founded upon it, gave rise to various discussions. Certain circumstances, which have been treated as precedents on the other side, took place previous to the 21st Geo. III. (c.70); but according to the best information which we have received, no instance is to be found since the passing of the 21st Geo. III. in 1781 (c.70), in which an attempt has been made by the Court at any one of the three Presidencies, to issue a writ of habeas corpus of the description now contended for.
The statute of the 13th of Geo. III. (cap. 63) in the year
1773 provides (sect. 13) that his Majesty shall have power to erect a Supreme Court at Fort William, and a proviso to this effect is added (sect. 14): “That the said new charter, and the jurisdiction, powers and authorities to be thereby established, shall not may extend to all British subjects who shall reside in the Kingdom or Provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, or any of them, under the protection of the said United Company; and the same charter shall be competent and effectual, and the Supreme Court of Judicature therein and thereby to be established shall have full power and authority to hear and determine all complaints against any of his Majesty’s subjects,