Courts of circuit and appeal.
Courts of circuit and appeal were also appointed to travel through different areas, and sit as British judges of assize in both criminal and civil courts. Here was that same mixture of British and Asiatic judges as in the collectors' courts. But many changes were made from time to time in the judicial system, and the whole question will be better considered hereafter when dealing with the reforms of Lord Cornwallis, who eventually succeeded Warren Hastings as Governor-General.
Chief court or Sudder.
Meanwhile the Governor and Council still formed the chief court at Calcutta, and confirmed all capital sentences, or heard appeals in important civil cases, as in the old times when British authority was bounded by the Mahratta ditch. From time to time they passed regulations for the guidance of collectors, and eventually Warren Hastings drew up a clear and concise criminal code with his own hands. This chief court was known as the Sudder. It had a civil and a criminal side, and lasted as an institution down to the latest days of the East India Company.[12]
Patriarchal justice.
Under such circumstances British ideas of justice gradually superseded Mohammedan usages. Indeed it was impossible to maintain the criminal law of the Mohammedans in courts controlled more or less by British judges. Under Mohammedan law theft was punished by mutilation, adultery was punished by death, or not punished at all unless four eye-witnesses could be produced; whilst the most atrocious murderer might escape from justice by the payment of a blood fine to the kinsmen of his victim. Cazis and muftis might be nominally independent, but practically they yielded to British influences; and British judges administered justice in a patriarchal fashion, which might be condemned by trained lawyers, but was far better suited to the condition of the masses than British courts of law in the last century.
New members of Council and barrister judges.
§8. Whilst carrying out these reforms Warren Hastings was taken somewhat aback by the appointment of three English gentlemen, not in the service of the Company, to seats in the Calcutta Council. At the same time four barrister judges, equally independent of the Company, were sent out from England to form a Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta for the administration of English law, civil and criminal. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was to extend to all British subjects, and to all Asiatics who were servants of the Company or had dealings with British subjects. The Chief Justice was Sir Elijah Impey, who was known to Hastings, as the two had been schoolfellows together at Westminster. The three other barristers were puisne judges.
Regulating Act of 1773.