§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether the exceptional laws passed against natives of India, in the first years of this century, still remain unrepealed, by which, on a warrant from the Governor General of India, or a Lieutenant Governor, or Governor of a Presidency, any native of India can be imprisoned during the pleasure of the Government without trial, and the property of any native of India may be seized and sequestrated by the Government similarly during pleasure; and, whether, if so, he intends to propose the abolition of such measures?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONSir, the Question does not specify the regulations in respect of which information is asked for; but it is the fact that under laws which deal with political offences the Governor General and the Governors of Madras and Bombay in Council possess a power of imprisonment, without trial, for political offences. The property of such prisoners may be taken charge of and be administered by the Court of Wards; but there is nothing of the nature of confiscation in this proceeding; and the Court accounts for the proceeds to the proprietors of the estates. I am not prepared to say that these powers could be safely abandoned.
§ MR. O'DONNELLasked whether it was to be understood that any native of India could be deprived of his liberty and property by the simple order of the Viceroy, or of the Governors of Provinces, without being entitled to demand a trial?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he believed that that was so; but he could not undertake to answer without Notice as to the cases in which this power had been exercised. The power existed under a regulation passed at the beginning of the present century. It was proposed to repeat this power in the Statute introduced lately for the codification of the general law; but on repre- 36 sentation to the Home Government, it was considered that the matter could not be appropriately introduced into that consolidating Statute.