Some Noteworthy Features of the Administration of Criminal Justice

The following were some of the key features of the system of administration of criminal justice established in this country:

(i) A combination of judicial and executive functions, that is , the function of the judge and prosecutor-were vested in the same officer.

(ii) The differential treatment according to European British subjects and their partial immunity from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts.

(iii) A general absence of the system of trial by jury.

(iv The existence on the statute book of laws enabling the executive Government to set up special tribunals with special rules of procedure and evidence for the trial, particularly, of offences against State.

(v) Complete control of the executive over the appointments, promotion, etc., of the subordinate judges and magistrates.

(vi) Restriction on the right to the writ of Habeas Corpus. The Code of Criminal Procedure confined the right to the limits of the ordinary original jurisdiction of the High Courts of Judicature at Fort William, Madras, and Bombay and specially forbade the issue of the writ for the benefit of persons detained under the Bengal State Prisoners' Regulation, 1818, Madras Regulation II of 1819, Bombay Regulation XXV of 1827, the State Prisoners' Act 1850, or the State Prisoner's Act 1858.

(vii) Want of legalism and judicial independence even in the High Courts, the highest tribunals of the country, owing to a variety of circumstances such as the provision that the judges were to hold office at the pleasure of the Crown, unlike in English where they were removable only upon an address of both Houses of Parliament; the practice of giving local governments a predominant voice in the appointment of judges, and the existence of a statutory provision that at least one-third of judges must be members of the Indian Civil Service.

(viii) Exemption from the original jurisdiction of the High Courts of the Governor-General, Governors, and members of their executive councils for acts done by them in public capacity, or in respect of any offence not being treason or felony.

(ix) Written  order by the Governor-General in Council which could be placed in full justification of any act in any proceeding in a High Court acting in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, except so far as the order extended to any European British subjects.