46 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
*The Act of 13th Geo. III. (c.63), and the charter founded upon it, gave rise to various disputes, arising, among other things, out of the issuing of the writ of habeas corpus; in cosequence of which the Act of 21 Geo. III. cap. 70, was passed for the purpose of removing doubts with respect to persons subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The writ of habeas corpus had been issued to persons who were owners of land; and it was contended that any person who held the land and who paid rent, but had no other occupation connecting him with the East India Company, was to be considered as a person within the service of the East India Company, and as such within the general jurisdiction of the court. It has been said that applications were made on the part of the East India Company that provison should be made in the Act, giving power to issue the writ of habeas corpus. To what particular descriptions of persons the direction of such writs was intended to be confined is not stated; but if the subject was brought under the consideration of Government, and yet no clause was introduced in the Act of 21st Geo. III. (c. 70), then we have the less reason to suppose it was the particular intention of the Legislature to give the authority contended for. Certainly it is not expressly given, but the persons to whom writs of habeas corpus are said to have been addressed are expressly excepted from the jurisdiction of the Court in the
9th and 10th sections of that Act, which says, generally, that natives under the circumstances therein particularized shall not be subject to the jurisdiction of the court on account of those circumstances; thereby clearly assuming, that but for those circumstances as natives, they would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the court. And then a clause is added, “that for more perfectly ascertaining those natives who should be subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the Governor General and Council should cause the name, description, and place of usual abode, of all natives employed in the service of the East India Company, with certain exceptions, to be entered in a book or books alphabetically disposed.”
*For a short and entertaining, although perhaps not a very impartial account of these disputes, see Mill’s History of British India, Book
5th, Chapter 6th.