Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/97

Rh English magistrates over the Zamíndárs and other landholders, the administration of justice in criminal cases was much impeded, whilst the Regulation which vested the magistrates with the power of apprehending offenders, but without permitting them to interfere in any respect in the trials, gave rise to a new evil. The magistrates being obliged to deliver over to the Dároghas, or superintendents of the Faujdárí Courts, all persons charged with a breach of the peace, however trivial, and a considerable time often elapsing before they were brought to trial, many of the lowest and most indigent classes of the people were frequently detained for a long period in prison, where their sufferings often exceeded the degree of their criminality. The magistrates therefore on 27th June, 1787, were vested with authority to hear and decide on complaints of petty affrays, abusive names, and other slight offences, and under certain restrictions to inflict corporal punishment and impose fines on the offenders.

'But the numerous robberies, murders, and other enormities, which continued to be daily committed throughout the country, evincing that the administration of criminal justice was still in a very defective state; and as these evils appeared to result principally from the great delay which occurred in bringing offenders to punishment, and to the law not being duly enforced, as well as to other material defects in the Constitution of the Criminal Courts; and as it was essential for the prevention of crimes not only that offenders should be deprived of the means of eluding the pursuit of the officers of justice, but that they should be speedily and impartially tried when apprehended; the Governor-General in Council passed certain Regulations on 3rd December, 1790, establishing Courts of Circuit under the superintendence of English Judges assisted by natives versed in the Muhammadan