§ Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked the Under-Secretary for India if he will state why Mr. Lindsay, the Chief Judicial Commissioner of Oudh, did not take part in the retrial of the Singhs, who, after their acquittal by the Sessions judge, were convicted and sentenced to death by Mr. Pundit Lal and Mr. Stuart; whether both these gentlemen owed their appointments, which were made some months after the acquittal of the Singhs on their first trial on 22nd February, to the personal selection of Sir John Hewett; whether Mr. Pundit Lal was a promoted officer of the subordinate judicial service, who was at the time of the hearing of the appeal practically on probation; whether Mr. Stuart was a junior officer placed by Sir John Hewett to fill a temporary vacancy in the Judicial Commissioner's Court, who went straight to the Court from the office of judicial secretary in Sir John Hewett's Government; whether as judicial secretary Mr. Stuart, between the time of the 2681W acquittal on 22nd February, 1912, and his promotion to the bench on 18th April, 1912, the day before Mr. Lindsay, the Chief Judicial Commissioner, called the Public Prosecutor's attention to the case became in his capacity of judicial secretary conversant with this case, or did it come before him for the first time as a judge sitting in an appellate capacity, and has Mr. Stuart, who is now in this country, been asked for a statement on this matter; whether there is any parallel for the hearing at the Court of Appeal by two judges of a case in which there had been an acquittal pronounced by a judge of experience some months before either of them were promoted to the bench; and what was the reason of this new departure in Indian judicial appeals?
§ Mr. MONTAGUThe whole of my hon. Friend's question is directed to allege pariality, inexperience, unfitness, and, I think, improper conduct on the part, at least, of the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Lindsay. The House will not require to be assured that there is no sort of foundation for these suggestions—which are really most absurd and offensive—and that the judges who heard the appeal are on the bench because the Lieutenant-Governor, the Government of India, and the Secretary of State are satisfied that they would be, as indeed they are, in every way fitted for the responsibilities of these offices. As is well known, such reflections on British judges are not permitted in this House, and I would claim for our Indian judges the same immunity from ill-informed attacks.