MOTION FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 9 August 1872)

§ GENERAL FORESTER
rose to call the attention of the House to the case of 842 Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick, who in 1864 was Judge of the Small Cause Court at Delhi, and Agent to the Government of India, in defending two suits brought against them in the Deputy Commissioner's Court at Delhi by the Representatives of the Begum Sombre; and to move an Address for a Copy of the Record in the "Badshapore Suit," or so much of it as relates to Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick, and which will be found at pages 28 and 53 of the Record, being the depositions of the collector and magistrate of Meerut, and of Mr. Fitzpatrick in the Court of the Deputy Commissioner at Delhi. He wished, at the outset, to set himself right with regard to the Question which stood in his name on the Notice Paper last Tuesday, and which was asked by the hon. Member for York (Mr. J. Lowther). His reason for putting the Question on the Paper was, that he found precedents for it during the last and present Parliaments. For instance, the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Eykyn) asked a question with regard to a Mr. Cook; the hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Bagge) also asked a Question with regard to Mr. Watkin; and a Question was put as to the case of Mr. Churchward, he believed by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne). He understood that the Under Secretary of State said the other day that this was not such a case as should be brought before the House, inasmuch as but for the protection afforded by the privileges enjoyed by a Member of Parliament he would have become liable to an action-at-law for defamation of character in stating the case. He believed, however, that he had been perfectly right; but he, of course, bowed to the decision of the Speaker, and that was his reason for bringing the matter forward on the present occasion in the form of a Motion. Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick, the gentleman in question, who was in the year 1864 Judge of the Small Cause Court at Delhi, and in that year appointed by the Government of Delhi to defend two suits brought against them in the Deputy Commissioner's Court at Delhi by the representatives of the Begum Sombre, obtained possession of certain books of record from the office of the collector and magistrate of Meerut. When the said Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick returned the books it was found that some of the letters and documents were missing 843 which were of material importance in the suit of the plaintiffs. He was subpoenaed, and when placed in the witness-box declined answering several questions on the ground of privilege, as would appear from the evidence. The collector at Meerut, who was then called by subpœna, and being a Government servant was an unwilling witness, admitted that the documents had been abstracted from the books while they were in the possession of Mr. Fitzpatrick. Instead of being dismissed the service for tampering with the public records, Mr. Fitzpatrick had been continued up to the present time as Government agent in respect of these suits, and had for three years been superintending them in this country at a salary of £1,600 a-year. [The right hon. and gallant Member proceeded to read the lengthy evidence to which he had referred, with the object of supporting the statements he had made.] The agent of the plaintiffs went to Meerut to inspect the letter-book of public documents; but soon after he arrived the Government heard of the circumstance, and ordered the collector and magistrate at Meerut not to allow the agent to look into the book. That was how they came to know that these letters were missing. Yet the agent of the Government had taken the books to Delhi, and there removed from public documents letters which were essential in the cause. If this was justice in India, it was not justice in England; and he thought this was a subject which he had every right to bring before the House of Commons. He begged to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

MR. GRANT DUFF
said, of course, there was not the slightest objection to giving the Papers, if the right hon. and gallant Member would move for them, along with a copy of a letter from Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick to the Under Secretary of State for India dated the 844 8th of August, 1872, which supplied the shortest answer to what had been just said. Mr. Fitzpatrick stated that the claim of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Forester) as representing the Sombre family in the Badshapore suit, to property valued altogether at about £500,000, was dismissed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by an order which was made final a few days ago. He (Mr. Fitzpatrick) was employed throughout the proceedings, both in India and this country, by the Government of India in its behalf, and of course had exerted himself to the best of his ability to refute what he believed, and what had been held by the highest tribunal, to be an utterly unfounded claim. Having read in the newspapers the proceedings of the House of Commons on Tuesday, he hastened to furnish particulars of the matter. The allegation that he obtained possession of certain documents at the collector's office at Meerut in some improper manner, and without proper authority, was a most unfounded charge, to which he gave the most emphatic contradiction. The papers being Official Correspondence were, under the orders of the Government of India, whose property they were, removed by him from the collector of Meerut's office, taken to Delhi, and sent to the Government at Calcutta in the ordinary course of his duty, in preparing the defence of the suit. The removal was made with the knowledge and permission of Mr. Quinton, the officiating collector; and the notion of anything like a private removal of it was absolutely precluded by the large number of letters and records. Mr. Fitzpatrick thus explained how the complaint now put forward by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Forester) appeared to have been suggested— Mr. Quinton, the officiating collector of Meerut, by whom the papers had been made over to me as the representative of the Government in these suits, had left for Oude, and had been succeeded by Mr. Forbes before the suit came on for hearing. To this latter officer General Forester's agents applied for copies of some of the very documents that had been removed. He, finding that these documents were not forthcoming, appears to have been seized with a suspicion (which any district officer in India will understand) that they had been abstracted by some one hostile to Government. To this suspicion he seems to have given expression, and, as might be expected (especially in a case in which we were denouncing 845 the documents relied on by General Forester and the Sombres as forgeries), the thing was retorted on us. All, however, was cleared up at the trial. The charge never got beyond the stage of vague insinuation, supported by pretty strong abuse of the Government and its officers. It was deemed unworthy of the slightest notice in the two lower Courts, and was expressly withdrawn by General Forester's counsel (Mr. Newton) before the conclusion of the arguments in the Chief Court of the Punjab. The hon. Gentleman concluded by saying he should have no objection to the Motion, provided it were so amended as to include this letter from Mr. Fitzpatrick.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he was quite sure that the House would be gratified that the right hon. and gallant Member for Wenlock, who was so well known in the House, had availed himself, without delay, of the Speaker's suggestion to bring the subject, by Motion, before the House. He thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was entitled to the information which his Motion had elicited from the Government; and, without expressing any opinion whatsoever on the subject-matter of the case, he (Mr. Newdegate) begged to thank the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for having vindicated the forms of the House, which were so essential to a right understanding of the business that might be brought before it.

§ MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCK
said, the official alluded to in the Question put by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lowther) some days ago ought to be greatly obliged to the right hon. and gallant Member for Wenlock (General Forester) for having elucidated the subject, and shown how entirely groundless the charges suggested by the Question were. It was impossible to read the original Question without drawing from it the inference that Mr. Denis Fitzpatrick, as a Government official, had abstracted certain Government documents, and that he had, nevertheless, been continued in office by the Government. The Question conveyed an imputation against Mr. Fitzpatrick; and against the Government. As explained, that charge ap- 846 peared now to be nothing more than that he, as an official of Government, had removed documents from the custody of one branch of the Government to another; that he did so with the full knowledge of the Government; that he did so in the discharge of his duty; that the allegations which were made by rumour and surmise by those representing the right hon. and gallant Member for Wenlock during the pendency of the legal proceedings in India instituted by the right hon. and gallant Member, were withdrawn by the counsel of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman in open Court; and that they ought never to have been renewed here in any shape. No one ought to be more obliged to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman than Mr. Fitzpatrick.

§ GENERAL FORESTER
, in replying, said his agent who went to look at the books was forbidden to look at them. How many letters were taken from the books it was impossible to say. An order from the Government prevented his agent from going into the whole subject.