§ SIR H. COTTON (Nottingham, E.)To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has now received any information regarding the actual facts in the appeal case before the High Court of Calcutta, in which it was alleged that a district Judge, differing in opinion from 1251 both of the assessors in a murder case, had passed a sentence of death, that the counsel who appeared for the condemned man was stopped by the High Court before he had finished his argument, that the Crown Prosecutor then said that he could not support the conviction as the sessions Judge had implicitly believed the defence story, and that therefore the prosecution was bound to fail, and that the High Court then dismissed the appeal and confirmed the sentence of death; and whether the death sentence was actually carried out.
(Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) The papers forwarded by the Government of India show that both the assessors found the prisoner guilty of murder, and that there was no difference of opinion between them and the sessions Judge; that the prisoner's counsel addressed the High Court for upwards of an hour, and sat down of his own accord; and that the Crown Prosecutor made no statement in the sense alleged. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, on a consideration of all the circumstances, commuted the sentence to one of transportation for life.