IUHAMMAD YUSUF-UD-DIN Vs. QUEEN-EMPRESS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case their Lordships are called upon to pronounce their opinion as to whether the arrest of Yusuf-ud-din, a native of the Nizam's State, was lawfully executed by a warrant issued by a magistrate at Simla.

(2.) THE alleged offence for which the accused was arrested was the abetment in British territory of the offence which we may call compendiously bribery. Their Lordships have nothing to do with the question whether or not, if the accused had been found within British territory, he could have been lawfully tried and convicted of that offence, because the question reserved for their Lordships here to consider is whether or not the arrest of the man, while he was at the station on a railway which is locally situated within the dominions of the Nizam, was a lawful arrest; nor, except for the purpose of this particular case, have their Lordships anything to do with the consequences of that arrest being lawful or otherwise. The one question which they have to determine is whether the arrest was lawful.

(3.) NOW , the authority which was asked for was the authority to exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction over the railway lands and premises; and if there is one thing manifest in the course of the correspondence more than another, it is that the Nizam jealously refused anything in the nature of a cession of territory such as would confer by itself local jurisdiction. It is the one thing which all through the correspondence appears to have been refused., The result is that one must look and see what was ultimately conceded; and when one comes to look at that which was asked for and that which was granted, it seems to be very plainly set forth in the additional papers, which their Lordships understand not to have been placed in the hands of the Chief Court, whose judgment is appealed from.