§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT PEEL)My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which is entitled "An Act to make further provision with respect to the qualifications of Judges of High Courts in British India." Some difficulty has arisen, I understand, from the fact that, under the Government of India Act, one of the qualifications for the appointment of a Judge to the High Court is that he should have been enrolled as a pleader of the High Court for ten years. As your Lordships ' know, there have been recent changes in India, one of which is the substitution of High Courts for Chief Courts in some of the Provinces. The result of a too strict interpretation of the Act might be—and I believe that it has been found so to work —that these pleaders would be disqualified for some ten years after the constitution of the High Courts from being eligible for Judgeships of a High Court. This Bill declares, in effect, that these pleaders shall be able to count towards their ten years the years in which they were pleaders before the Chief Courts. Another object of the Bill is to remove certain doubts that have arisen as to the validity of a temporary appointment to a Judgeship in the High Court of the Punjab. Those are, shortly, the two points on which I venture to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Peel.)
301§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.