50 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the Provincial Courts up to the highest appellate tribunal and in cases of sufficient magnitude to justify it to your Lordships at this Board, passing by the Supreme Court, and proceeding in a course of judicature entirely distinct from that of the Supreme Court, it is a most important question whether the course of proceeding is to be entirely evaded, on a ground very similar to that acted upon between 1773 and 1781. At that time certain natives, because they held land, or because they were employed in certain transactions, were contended to be within the language of the Act of Parliament and charter, which subjected persons in the service of the East India Company to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Let it be admitted for the argument that the gaoler of a Provincial Court stands in the character of a person in the service of the Company and that he would be liable, as such, to have an habeas corpus directed to him, if he, as an individual, detained any person in his custody. Does it, therefore, follow that his character as a servant of the Company would give a right to the court to direct an habeas corpus to that person, to bring up a person in his custody as a prisoner of the local court? Does it give a right to the Supreme Court to examine into the constitution of the court (for this has been asserted), and to review its proceedings ? It has been said the court must have before it all the regulations and laws by which the Provincial Court was constituted, whether such court be a part of the original establishment of the Mogul Government not yet altered, or whether it be a new court established under the authority given by Parliament to the Government to make regulations. All this, according to the doctrine contended for, must be brought before the court in the shape of a return, for the Supreme Court to judge, first, whether the Provincial Court has been legally constituted, its proceedings have been properly conducted. We humbly apprehend, that it is manifest from the whole tenor of the Acts of Parliament and charter, that no such jurisdiction was intended to be given. In the Regulating Act of 21st George III. (c. 70), Section 23, it is enacted “that the Governor General and Council shall have power and authority from time to time to frame regulations for the Provincial Courts and Councils.” Here is a distinct legislative recognition of these Provincial Courts. A similar power is given to the Governments of Madras and Bombay to regulate the proceedings of the Provincial Courts of their Presidencies, and all those