In the former case the East India Company, on the death of the Begum Sumroo in 1836, had resumed her lands and seized certain arms and stores which were said to appertain to the tenure. It appeared that previous to 1803 the Begum held her possessions in the Dooab under Scindia, who was the de facto sovereign. Her status was that of a jaghirdar, holding upon a jaidad tenure, i.e. exercising, by a sort of delegated sovereignty, the whole administration, civil and criminal, within her territory, and drawing all its public revenues, on condition of keeping up a body of troops to be employed, when called upon, in the service of the sovereign under whom she held. After 1803 the sovereignty formerly possessed by Scindia passed to the East India Company, and the status of the Begum remained as before, her sovereign only being changed. The lower Courts dismissed the suit on the ground that the resumption was an Act of State. This defence was over-ruled by the Judicial Committee. They said,

"The Act of Government in this case was not the seizure by arbitrary power of territories which up to that time had belonged to another sovereign state; it was the resumption of lands previously held from the Government under a particular tenure, upon the alleged determination of that tenure. The possession was taken under colour of a legal title; that title being the undoubted right of the sovereign power to resume and retain, or assess to the public revenue, all lands within its territories upon the determination of the tenure under which they may have been exceptionally held rent-free. If by means of the continuance of the tenure, or for other cause, a right be claimed in derogation of this title of the Government, that claim, like any other arising between the Government and its subjects, would, primâ facie, be cognizable by the Municipal Courts of India." (Forester v. Secretary of State, 12 B.L.R. PC. 120, 150.)

In the latter case, the plaintiffs sued to establish their rights as mortgagees under the King of Delhi of land which had been assigned in 1803 for the support of the Mogul Sovereignty, and which had been seized and confiscated after the mutiny in 1857. There, also, the suit had been dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and this dismissal was affirmed. The Judicial Committee distinguished this from the case last cited on the ground of the difference between the status of the King of Delhi and the Begum Sumroo. The status of Shah Alum was that of a king. The Begum was held not to be a sovereign princess, but a mere jaidadar under Scindia. The lands had been assigned to the Delhi kings by an arrangement which “was as much an Act of State as if it had been carried into effect by formal treaty signed by the British Government."

"Municipal Courts have no jurisdiction to enforce engagements between sovereigns founded on treaties. The Government when they deposed and confiscated the property of the late king, as between them and the king, did not affect to do so under any legal right. Their acts can be judged of only by the law of nations; nor is it open to any other person to question the rightfulness of the deposition, or of the consequent confiscation of the king's property."

"The revenues and territories which in 1804 were, by an Act of State, assigned for the maintenance of Shah Alum and his household, were in 1857, also by an Act of State, resumed and confiscated. The

seizure and confiscation were acts of absolute power, and were not acts done under colour of any legal right, of which a Municipal Court could take cognizance." (Raja Saliqram v. The Secretary of State. 12 B.L.R. (PC.) 167. 184.)

At p. 124, 1. 3, after 7 Mad. H. C. 58, add

ibid. 182.

At p. 212, 1. 38, after 31, LJ. Adm. 105, add
See, however, Child v. Hearn, 9 LR. Ex. 176.

At p. 214, 1. 29, after 31, LJ. MC. 166, add
Attorney-General v. Terry (9 LR. Ch. 423).

At p. 217, 1. 28, after 6 Mad. H.C. 180, add affirmed, P.C.

At p. 295, 1. 10, add

So where a depositor in a Savings Bank presented a warrant for 108. which he was entitled to draw, and the clerk, referring by mistake to a wrong letter of advice, handed him £8 10s. 6d., which he entered in the prisoner's deposit book, and the prisoner took away the money; it being found by the jury that at the moment of taking it up he had an animus furandi, it was held by eleven against three judges that he was guilty of larceny. (Reg. v. Middleton, 2 LR. CC. 38.)

At p. 316, 1. 30, add

Reg. v. Negus, 2 LR. CC. 34.

At p. 358, l. 12, add

Wotherspoon v. Currie, 5 LR. HL. 508.

At p. 366, 1. 20, after the words "engagement with him," add
(See Sale v. Lambert, 18 LR. Eq. 1. Potter v. Duffield, ib. 4.)

ACT No. XLV OF 1860.

PASSED BY THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF INDIA.

(Received the assent of the Governor-General on the 6th October, 1860.)

THE INDIAN PENAL CODE.

CHAPTER I.

WHEREAS it is expedient to provide a General Penal Code for British India; It is enacted as follows:

Preamble.

Title and extent of operation of the Code.

1. This Act shall be called THE INDIAN PENAL CODE, and shall take effect on and from the 1st day of May, 1861, throughout the whole of the Territories which are or may become vested in Her Majesty by the Statute 21 and 22 Victoria, Chapter 106, entitled "An Act for the better Government of India," except the Settlement of Prince of Wales' Island, Singapore, and Malacca.

Now extended to that settlement by Act V of 1867.

2. Every person shall be liable to punishment under this Code and not otherwise, for every act or omission contrary to the provisions thereof, of which he shall be guilty within the said Territories on or after the said 1st day of May, 1861.

Punishment of offences commitwithin the ted said Territories.

This date was by Act VI of 1861 altered to the 1st day of January, 1862, and every part of the Code in which the 1st day of May, 1861, is mentioned, is to be construed as if the words "the 1st day of January, 1862," had been used instead.

B

Punishment of

offences committed beyond, but which by Law may be tried within

3. Any person liable, by any law passed by the Governor-General of India in Čouncil, to be tried for an offence committed beyond the limits of the said Territories, shall be dealt with according to the provisions of this Code for any act committed beyond the said Territories, in the same manner as if such act had been committed within the said Territories.

the Territories.

Punishment of offences committed by a servant

within a Foreign allied State.

4. Every servant of the Queen shall be subject to punishment under this Code for every act or omission contrary to the of the Queen provisions thereof, of which he, whilst in such service, shall be guilty on or after the said 1st day of May, 1861, within the dominions of any Prince or State in alliance with the Queen, by virtue of any treaty or engagement heretofore entered into with the East India Company, or which may have been or may hereafter be made in the name of the Queen by any Government of India.

The object of this Chapter is to substitute the Penal Code for the existing Criminal law of India. That law, however, is not repealed except by implication, and in cases to which the provisions of this Code apply. The frame of this clause is thus explained by the Commissioners in their Second Report 1847, § § 536–538.

"We do not advise the general repeal of the Penal Laws now existing in the territories for which we have recommended the enactment of the Code. We think it will be more expedient to provide only that no man shall be tried or punished (except by a Court Martial) for any acts which constitute any offence defined in the Code, otherwise than according to its provisions. It is possible that a few actions which are punishable by some existing law, and which the Legislature would not desire to exempt, may have been omitted from the Code. And, in addition to this consideration, it appears to us that actions which have been made penal on special temporary grounds, ought not to be included in a general Penal Code intended to take its place amongst the permanent institutions of the country."

The object is carried out as regards offences committed within the territories by s. 2, which is explicit enough.

With regard to offences committed beyond those territories the Code is less clear. Section 3 enacts that where a person might, by virtue of any act of the Legislative Council of Calcutta, be tried in British India for an offence committed out of British India, he is to be dealt with