EMPEROR Vs. KHALPA RANCHOD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have before us a reference by the Political Agent of Mewas Estates in West Khandesh in which we have to decide whether a sentence of death passed by the Agent upon the accused should be confirmed. We have also before us an appeal by the accused against the sentence. The accused is stated to be a resident of Boripada in the Nala State, taluka Taloda, District West Khandesh, and the murder is said to have been committed at Boripada, Nala State, and the charge is framed accordingly.

(2.) The question is whether the Agent for the Mewas Estates has jurisdiction in the case of a murder committed at Boripada, Act XI of 1846 recites that whereas it has been deemed expedient to exempt from the jurisdiction of the civil and criminal Courts of the Bombay Presidency certain portions of the Purganas of Nandurbar, etc., in the Province of Khandesh, it is enacted that so much of Appendix A of Regulation XXIX of 1827 of the Bombay Code as declares the villages contained in the Schedule annexed to the Act, and the lands attached thereto (being parts of the Purganas of Nandurbar, etc.), subject to the Regulations established for the administration of Civil arid Criminal Justice in the Bombay Presidency, be repealed; and it is enacted that from and after the said day the administration of Civil and Criminal Justice, the superintendence of the Police, etc., shall vest in such Agent to the Governor of Bombay as shall be appointed by the Governor of Bombay in Council, and it shall be competent to the Governor in Council by an order in Council, to prescribe such rules as he may deem proper for the guidance of the Agent aforesaid and of all the officers subordinate to his control and authority, and to determine to what extent the decision of the Agent in civil suits shall be final, and to define the authority to be exercised by the Agent in criminal trials, and what cases he shall submit to the decision of the Sudder Foujdaree Adawlut; and it is enacted by Section 4 that upon the receipt of any criminal trial by the Agent under the rules which may be prescribed by the Governor in Council, the Sudder Foujdaree Adawlut shall proceed to pass a final judgment, or such other order as may after mature consideration seem to the Court requisite and proper, in the same manner as if the trial had been sent up in ordinary course from a Sessions Judge.

(3.) Now the villages described in the Schedule include as belonging to the Chief, styled Oomed walad Pacha Parvee of Nal, an uninhabited village of Nal and certain other uninhabited villages and the inhabited village of Goolyambn. There is no mention of any village of Boripada.