HC Deb 25 February 1908 vol 184 cc1558-9
MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that six members of the Indian Bar, of whom three are barristers of the London Inns of Court, were, early in May, 1907, arrested and kept in prison, bail being refused, for five months, and then released within a few days of their being acquitted at Rawal Pindi for complicity in sedition, the evidence tendered against them having been characterised by Mr. Martineau, the Judge before whom they were tried, as improbable and unreliable, false, fabricated, and malicious, the speeches which were the foundation of the charge being made in an agitation against excessive enhancement of the land revenue; and whether, having regard to the fact that these six gentlemen of position and education were kept in gaol for 153 days on a baseless charge, he will state what reparation the Government are prepared to make to them for this unmerited suffering, pecuniary loss, and personal humiliation.

MR. MORLEY

I am aware of the circumstances set out in the beginning of the Question. Application for bail was refused by the magistrate. An appeal was heard by the Punjab Chief Court, and dismissed by them. Mr. Martineau did not use the epithets in the Question of the evidence as a whole, but in respect of some portions of the evidence of particular witnesses, he described them as unreliable. That he did not regard the charge as baseless, in the sense that it was a charge that did not require to be investigated by a magistrate, is shown by the fact that he did not release the accused on bail, as he had the power to do at any moment, if satisfied that no prima facie case existed. The foundation of the charge, to use the language of the Question, was that the accused instigated and abetted a riot. I do not think that reasons for such reparation as my hon. friend demands are disclosed.

SIR HENRY CRAIK (Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities)

I should like to ask whether a very different complexion has not been placed on the evidence in question by the judgment of the Chief Court at Lahore, on the appeal against the decision of this magistrate?

MR. MORLEY

I think the hon. Member is giving information rather than asking a Question.