§ MR. CAINE (Bradford, E.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he has received any information regarding the sentence of death alleged to have been passed by the Sessions Judge of Bhagalpore upon a young lad 10 years of age; and, if so, will be lay any Papers upon the Table of the House?
§ THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,) Wolverhampton, E.I have made a full inquiry into the case, and I have read the Judgment of the High Court. The boy to whom the question refers was charged with taking a younger boy into an uninhabited house, and there robbing him and inflicting upon him grievous bodily harm. It appears that the prosecutor was wounded very severely, and was left in a state of insensibility. The High Court, in their Judgment, stated that there was no doubt that he was shockingly wounded. The case was tried before the Sessions Judge with two assessors. The Judge and one assessor were of opinion that the accused was guilty; the other assessor dissented from their verdict. Under the Indian Penal Code, the minimum penalty for an offence of this description is seven years' imprisonment, and the boy was sentenced in accordance with the Code to this punishment. But the Judge availed himself of the power conferred upon him by the Indian Reformatories Act, and commuted the penalty to that of detention for a period of seven years in a reformatory school. The boy appealed to the High Court at Calcutta, and the Judges of that Court, after a most careful consideration of all the evidence, were of opinion that it was not sufficient to justify a conviction, and they directed the release of the boy. In these circum- 1648 stances, I see no necessity for laying any Papers upon the Table of the House.
§ MR. H. H. FOWLERNo.