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Empowerment of Judges of Civil Courts / Enhancing

Empowerment of Judges of Civil Courts / Enhancing

Judge’s highest judicial power

Lord Cornwallis had increased the power of Judges and earlier Judges could not intervene or interfere into the activities of officers of other departments. But, in the tenure of Lord Cornwallis, Judges got the power and people could file law suits against officers of the Executive. 101

 

Judge’s conduct

The position of Judges was obviously higher. Judges acted in such a way that their main work was to find faults with the Collector and other officers of the Executive with a view to protecting people from them. From time to time, Mr. Par Bhushnar had given legal opinions against Collectors. Later on Mr. Melville came and though he did not oppose the view, he got engaged in conflict in different issues with the Collector. Sometime he used offensive language against the Collector and other officers also did not like the use of abusive language on the part of the Judge against the Collector. Most often he used authoritative language and issued summons full of uncourteous language. Even, the Judge’s Registrar, who was a very petty officer, used disrespectful and uncivil language and impolite manner of expression while writing to the Collector. Several times the Registrar was told to be polite and civil, but the Registrar expressed his inability in this regard and sometimes, the Registrar threatened the Collector.              

If an instance is cited, the nature of Mr. Melville’s activities could easily be discernable. Through the Collector some businessmen sold opium without taking license and got punishment. Mr. Melville could easily understand that following law these businessmen were not compelled to take license. Comprehending the whole situation, Mr. Melville dismissed the case and fined East India Company five rupee for punishing those businessmen with false accusation. Furthermore, Mr. Melville fined the Collector for 200 rupees as the Collector did not come to know about submitting an application for reviewing the verdict.

In another case, Mr. Melville made free from imprisonment some people who did not pay Government loan. Mr. Melville allowed those people to be free after paying only the principal amount of the loan. The Collector proposed that concerned people should be kept confined until they would pay the expenses incurred in collecting the loan; but Mr. Melville rejected the proposal of the Collector. Spending a small amount of money, the King of Ishafpur in connivance with the Zamindars established Parganas Danasiya and later on, it had been sold to some buyers. The buyers filed a case for lowering the price. In the case, they mentioned that the clerical accounting was wrong and the Judge issued a decree. Certainly the accounting was wrong and the accounting of a village had been done twice. Later on, it had been evident that the buyers did not file the case with a view to correcting the accounting rather they filed the case for lowering the price. The mentioned instances proved that Judiciary (Judges of Civil Courts) intentionally confronts with the Executive. Judges remained busy in showing power more than they retained.

Here it would be worth to present a documentary evidence of the relation existed between the Judges and the Salt Department. Salt Department had been started functioning in 1790. It had been turned into a commercial organization (enterprise) which was run following general rule. The present condition of the Salt Department was not appreciated by the agents because Salt Department adopted all means from their old system. Then the agents informed Mr. Barros about the ineffectiveness of the old system and urged him to give verdict in favour of formulating a new effective system. Mr. Barros declared his inability to give a verdict only in consideration to the papers presented. He wrote that their working-technique was illegal and exploitative. Many accusations had been lodged. In such a situation, Mr. Barros accused the salt-peasants and summoned them, but the agents barred them from going to the court and charged the Judge to put hindrance in salt production.

 

In 1795, Mr. Haselrige came as the Judge. With great expectation, the salt-agents urged the Judge to stop the interference of Criminal Court in issues of salt production. But, the Judge did not feel satisfied with the urging. In fact, production of salt had been stopped because of the offences of Salt-Department and the unwillingness of the Judges. In 1795, the Government took up the issue into consideration and tried to take initiatives to keep continuing salt production.

In the era of new rule, the relation between the Judiciary and the administrative body was as such and it continued upto the administrative issues had been fixed.