Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/226

 With a Stuff Gown in the Mofussil. and a new counsel is as interesting to them as a new ironclad to the rulers of nations. They come, clients approach the verandah, a party of at least three in all — smooth-skinned natives in puggaries and white raiment; they come in a number, greater or less, as the case may be, for safety's sake, but never alone — the litigant so/nsmight spoil the case «r settle too big a fee. Off come all the shoes in the verandah, and the party enter and seat themselves, some on the chairs, the lesser lights on the floor in front of the office table. The whole of the case has to be elicited from them direct, if it is an original case, a process always of no small difficulty, however fluent counsel may have become, in time, at the languages; for the salient points of a case to a Western mind are those which to that of an Oriental seem the most remote from the issue. Counsel having heard every thing, noted it down, and taken much time and trouble, the fee is mentioned; and when the amount is first named by the clerk, be it high or low, be it tens or thousands of rupees, one course alone presents itself to the liti gant's mind — he at once offers one tenth. No matter how inexorable he may know the man whom he wishes to retain is when once the fee is fixed, still the native must haggle; he will even go away and return again and again, or, if the barrister at once terminates the interview, will sit out in the verandah and discuss the matter with any one handy. The important preliminary finally settled, the litigant resorts to a new shift — suggests in vain that part shall be paid now, and the rest when the case is won; or if the amount of the fixed fee is a large one, he will still endeavor to get the brief taken for less than that. Of the time and trouble already spent he recks not, and the novice who allows any part of the fee to stand over need never hope, unless the case is won, to see the balance. If other clients come up meanwhile, they pa tiently sit on the verandah on their haunches until the interview within is terminated, even though it should last for hours.

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Counsel having satisfactorily obtained his case and reduced his notes to something which is more or less of a brief, the next thing to decide is the court in which the case is to come on. Civil litigation in the mofussil comes before judges of varying monetary and local jurisdictions, whose decrees are ap pealable to higher courts, and the decisions of those higher courts in their turn are ap pealable on points of law to the Supreme Court of the province. It is in this Supreme Court, which is cog nizant both of the civil and the criminal courts, that the English barrister is enrolled on payment of a fee, etc., and thus becomes entitled to practise before it and in all courts subordinate to it. On the criminal side there are magistrates of three grades according to the powers they possess, as well as Courts of Session and the Supreme Court. Appeals are permissible in certain cases. , On the civil side, there are no juries in the mofussil; on the criminal, a European is en titled to have one empannelled, and the Courts of Session are always assisted by two native assessors, who are called on in the same way as jurymen at home to serve. The barrister, as a rule, then must formulate his views, legal and of fact, with regard to the effect which they are likely to have upon a single mind. It is a system for and against which much may be said. The majority of the judges are members of the Indian Civil Service, also engaged in executive work — a fact which at times leads counsel a pretty dance, when they go on tour in the district, more especially in criminal cases; but for the most part the courts sit in suitable buildings erected by Government, and thither the barrister must hie to institute and conduct his client's business. The large compound which surrounds the building is full of natives, suitors, and witnesses, squat ting in groups under the trees or roaming round the petition-writers in the verandah, who are recording in the vernacular what the litigant in person intends to inflict upon a