§ GENERAL FORESTERasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, as in almost every suit between the Natives of India and the Indian Government the Natives of India are debarred from having their appeal tried by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in consequence 1035 of the Government of India setting up what is termed the "political plea," and that the Secretary of State for India in Council, being defendants in the suit, sit in judgment and decide their own cause with closed doors in the India Office, it is the intention of the Government to refer the subject of the administration of justice to the Committee that is appointed to consider the affairs of India?
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in answering the Question he must endeavour to define between the reason which the hon. and gallant Gentleman gave in the earlier part of the Question and the conclusion he suggested in the latter. He was informed by the officials at the India Office that the phrase "political plea" was not known to them, nor did it appear that Natives of India were by its means generally debarred from having their appeals tried by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in cases where they had claims upon the Government property, but that, on the contrary, a very considerable proportion of the arrears of business which the Judicial Committee had to get through consisted of cases in which Natives of India were claimants against the Government. What happened was that in certain cases it was the duty of the Indian Government to plead that the steps they had taken in the assumption of property were of a public and not of a private character. That was a plea which was made in any country, but he was not aware that it was exempted from the jurisdiction of the Courts; it was an allegation which had to be tried by the Courts of Justice when it came before them. This was the information he had received from the India Office, and, however the case might be, it was not the intention of the Government to propose that the Question should be referred to the Committee on Indian affairs recently appointed, for the reason that that Committee would have its hands quite full with the business already before it. He did not in the least degree intend, when saying this, to imply that the subject-matter of the Question was unimportant or unfit to be considered or discussed either in the Indian Department or in that House. All he meant was that in the view of the Government it would not be expedient to refer it to the Committee appointed to consider the affairs of India.