§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether it is true that, under the new Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill (India), no European British subject may be sentenced to more than one year's imprisonment by the judgment of a sessions court, but that an Indian British subject may be sentenced by the judgment of the same court to imprisonment for fourteen years, to transportation for life, and even to the penalty of death?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONSir, the Criminal Law of India contained in the Indian Penal Code is precisely the same for Natives and Europeans. But there are differences in criminal procedure originating in the fact that the Courts of the East Indian Company had no power to try European subjects of the Queen, over whom the Supreme Courts, being Crown Courts, had exclusive jurisdiction. Since the assumption of the government by the Crown, the Indian Legislature has taken considerable steps towards assimilating the procedure applicable to Natives and Europeans; but some differences still remain, and that referred to in the Question is one of them. A Sessions Court can try a Native and sentence him, if convicted, to any punishment prescribed by the Penal Code; but there is an appeal from the conviction and sentence to the High Court. In the case of a Euro- 743 pean subject of the Crown, if the Sessions Court thinks that the offence with which he is charged demands a severer punishment than one year's imprisonment, it must transfer the case to the High Court, which will try the accused person with a jury, and sentence him, if convicted, to the proper punishment, and there will be no appeal. The Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill—in the latest shape in which it has reached the India Office—does not propose to alter the existing law in these particulars.