Page:The Indian Penal Code - Morgan and MacPherson - 1863.djvu/14

 4, CHAPTER I. These sections declare the extent of the ^ operation of the Code with respect to time, place, and person. After the first of Jannary 1862, all ofiences contained in this Code are pnnishable, whoever the offender may be. Every person is made liable to punishment, without distinction of nation, rank, caste or creed, provided only the offence with which he is charged has been committed in some part of British India.* The powers of the Indian Legislature extend to certain specified persons and places. The Act of Parliament (3 and 4, Will. 4, c. 85) which defines this legislative power, authorizes the Governor-General in Council "to make laws and regu^ lations for all persons, whether British or native, foreigners or others, and for all Courts of Justice, whether established by His Majesty's Charters or otherwise, and the jurisdiction thefeof^ and for all places and things whatsoever, within and through- out the whole and every part of the said (British) territo- this Code) stated, ** Tonr Lordship in Connoil will see that we have not proposed to except from the operation of this Code any of the ancient Sovereign houses of India residing within the Company's territories. Whether any such excep- tion onght to be made, is a qnestion which, without more accurate knowledge than we possess, we could not venture to decidli. We will only beg permission most respectftOly to observe that every such exception is an evil : that it is an evil that any man should be above the law ; — that it is a still greater evil that the public should be taught to regard as a high and enviable distinction the privilege of being above the law ; — that the longer such privileges are suffered to last, the more difficult it is to take them away ;-^-and that we greatly doubt whether any consideration, except that of public faith solemnly pledged, de- serves to be weighed against the advantages of equal justice. to frame the law of procedure in such a manner that families of high rank may be dispensed, as far as possible, from the necessity of performing acts which are here regarded, however unreasonably, as humiliating. But though it may be proper to make wide distinctions as respects form, there ought in our opinion, to be, as respects substance, no distinctions except those which the (Government is bound by express engagements to make. That a man of rank should be examined with particulcur ceremonies, or in a particular place, may in the present state of Indian Society be highly expedient. But that a man of any rank should be allowed to commit crimes with impunity must, in every state of society, be most pernicious." It will perhaps be found that the position of those persons who are privileged by treaty or otherwise differs from that of other persons rather in regard to Ibrm of procedure than in actual liability. See Acts XXYIL of 1854^ XXXVII. of 1858,^
 * As to persons of high rank, the Indian Law Oommissioners (the authors of
 * The peculiar state of public feeling in this countiy may render it advisable