PARBHU Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the conclusion of the arguments in this case on 26 January 1944, their Lordships announced that they would humbly advise His Majesty that the appeal be dismissed. They now state their reasons for this advice. On 15 August, 1942, the Sessions Judge of Rohtak in British India found the appellant guilty on a charge of murdering his uncle Nanhu. The appellant was sentenced to death and on appeal to the High Court of Lahore the conviction and the sentence were confirmed. On a petition to His Majesty in Council special leave to appeal in forma pauperis was granted to the appellant. The validity of the conviction was challenged before their Lordships on two grounds, viz., (1) that the appellant had been illegally arrested; and (2) that the Court which tried him had no jurisdiction to do so. 1. For the appreciation of this point a short narrative of the facts is necessary. The appellant is not a British subject, but is a native of the State of Jind in which he resided. The murder with which he was charged was committed in a train while it was running between two stations on the Southern Punjab Railway within the State of Jind. By an agreement entered into between the British Government and the State of Jind in 1900 the Rajah ceded to the British Government "full and exclusive power and jurisdiction of every kind over the lands in the said State which are or may hereafter be occupied by the Southern Punjab Railway .... and over all persons and things whatsoever within the said lands" (Aitchisons's "Treaties," Edn. 5 Vol. I. 282, No. 51).

(2.) The body of the deceased was discovered on 15 October 1941, in a train at Kinana station in Jind State by a constable of the British Indian Railway Police. At Jind, the next, station, he reported his discovery to a Sub-Inspector of the British Indian Railway Police. The latter undertook the investigation of the matter and prepared a first information report. The body was taken next day to Rohtak within British India for post mortem examination. On 18 October the Sub-Inspector arrested the appellant at a place in the State of Jind outside the railway. He produced the appellant on the same day before the District Magistrate of Jind who remanded the appellant to the custody of the police of the State of Jind, by whom the appellant was temporarily transferred to the British Indian Railway Police for investigation. On the following day a Sub- Inspector of the Jind Police joined the investigation. On 22 October, the Sub-Inspector of the Railway Police conveyed the appellant to Rohtak. A confession by the appellant was recorded by the Magistrate there who thereafter remanded the appellant to the judicial lock-up. On 14 January 1942, the appellant, described as now confined in the judicial lock-up, Jind, was formally extradited and sanction given by the Nizamat Jind for him to be handed over to the authorities of Rohtak District. This was duly effected and the appellant was brought to trial and convicted at Rohtak as already stated.

(3.) The contention of the appellant was that his arrest, having been effected in Jind territory by a British Indian officer, was illegal and that the illegality of his arrest vitiated the whole subsequent proceedings. Their Lordships reject this contention. They assume that the arrest was open to objection as an infringement of the sovereignty of Jind, although the Jind authorities, so far from resenting what had been done or regarding their rights as having been flouted, co-operated most readily with the British Indian police in bringing the appellant to justice. There was no suggestion of anything like kidnapping. In their Lordships' view, the validity of the trial and conviction of the appellant was not affected by any irregularity in his arrest. When the appellant was presented for trial at Rohtak he had been validly surrendered to the Court there by the Jind authorities and so far as that Court was concerned everything was regular and in order. In (1829) 9 B. and; C.: 446,1 the accused, a British subject charged with a crime committed in this country, had absconded to Belgium and was arrested there by a British police officer and brought back to England. On objection being taken at the trial to the validity of the arrest, Lord Tenterden C.J. said at p. 448 : "The question therefore is this, whether if a person charged with a crime is found in this country it is the duty of the Court to take care that such a party shall be amenable to justice or whether we are to consider the circumstances under which she was brought here. I thought, I still continue to think, that we cannot inquire into them."