AND THE LORD SAID UNTO— 57
Terminer and Gaol Delivery, to enable the court to exercise criminal jurisdiction. The power of civil jurisdiction is given specifically :– The persons to be subject to the jurisdiction are specifically pointed out. A general jurisdiction over the Provinces can never be supposed to be given unqualified, and with all the privileges and prerogatives of the Court of King’s Bench. The Supreme Court is a civil court and a court of equity; and according to the rules of construction applied on the other side you give all, and then you give a portion; you give all the jurisdiction; you give as it were the whole estate, and then you dole out in detail these little beneficial legacies. Those who have already obtained the whole, are to have, under this rule of construction, something less than the whole.
With respect to Moro Ragonath (1 Knapp, 8), however, it is impossible to contend that such a power could have been given to the Supreme Court of Bombay as was attempted to be exercised in his case. He was residing at Poonah. It was wanted to remove a cause into the court of Bombay. A habeas corpus was granted on an affidavit, and a person of high rank, nearly related to the deposed family, was called upon to bring up the body of a boy of whom he was the natural guardian, but who it was stated was then unduly detained in his custody. The question arises immediatley, how was he subject to this jurisdiction? If he had resisted, and a scuffle ensued, how could an attachment have been issued against those who disobeyed the writ? By this power of issuing an attachment you give a local jurisdiction, which by the regular prescribed terms of the charter does not exist. If the party disobeying is of the designated class subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, he ought to be registered : this man was not registered, and therefore there seems to have been no jurisdiction at all in the Court to have issued the writ : and he never could have been guilty of contempt in disobeying it. Even the Roman Emperor tells his subjects they are not bound to obey where the Judge exceeds the limits of his territorial jurisdiction: Pand, lib. 2. tit. 1. sec. 20. “extra territorium judicenti impune non paretur.”
With respect to the case of Bappoo Gunness (1 Knapp, 11), a writ of habeas corpus was directed to the gaoler of the Provincial