The legal system introduced by the British was based less on theoretical reasonableness than on its suitability to local condition and temperaments. It was necessarily imperfect, and with the awakening of national consciousness there was a steady demand for removal of its more glaring defects. Since the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 there were no matter which received a more general support or more consistent attention than the question of the separation of executive and judicial functions. The culmination of this came in 1899 when, in a memorial addressed to the Secretary of State for India, ten high judicial authorities set forth eight objections which are summarised as follows:
(i) that the condition of judicial with executive duties in the same officer violates the first principle of equity;
(ii) that while a judicial authority ought to be thoroughly impartial, and ought to approach the consideration any case without previous knowledge of the facts, an executive officer does not adequately discharge his duties unless his ears are open to all reports and information which he can in any degree employ for the benefit of the district;
(iii) that executive officers of India, being responsible for a large amount of miscellaneous business, did not have sufficient time to satisfactorily dispose of judicial work in addition to their existing work;
(iv) that being keenly interested in carrying out particular executive measures, executive officers are likely to come into conflict with individuals, and therefore it is inexpedient that they should also be invested with judicial powers;
(v) that under the existing system Collector magistrates do, in fact, neglect judicial for executive work;
(vi) that appeal from revenue assessments are apt to be futile when they are heard by revenue officers;
(vii) that great inconvenience, expense and suffering are imposed on suitors required to follow the camp of a judicial officer who, in the discharge of his executive duties, is making a tour in his district; and
(viii) that the existing system not only involves all whom it concerns in hardships and inconvenience, but also by associating the judicial tribunals with the work of the police and of detectives, and by diminishing the safeguards afforded by the rules of evidence, produces actual miscarriage of justice and creates, though justice be done, opportunities of suspicion, distrust and discontent which are greatly to be deplored.
The Government defended the existing system on the grounds that concentration of authority was consistent with the oriental view of administration, that it was economical, and that a separation would everywhere weaken the Collector's position and thereby that of the British Raj.
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