CRISIS IN INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 9

CRISIS IN INDIA

THE UNITED PROVINCES

MINISTRY WITHDRAWS ITS

RESIGNATION

PRISONERS ISSUE

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Received February 26, 11.20 a.m.) LUCKNOW, February 25. The United Provinces Ministry has withdrawn its resignation.

A joint statement issued by the Governor, Sir Harry Haig, and the Chief Minister, Pandit Pant, says that some cases for the release of political prisoners had been examined and others were being examined, and that orders for releases would be issued shortly.

In his recent statement, the Viceroy emphasised that the prisoners whose release was in dispute were, almost without exception, persons convicted by the normal criminal courts of violence or preparation for specific acts of violence, and that to acquiesce in their • immediate and indiscriminate release would be to strike a blow at the roots of law and order, in India and dangerously threaten peace and good government. He said there was no going back on the policy of readiness to examine individual cases and to grant release where there was no undue risk involved. There was, further, no impropriety in the Governors' requiring individual examination or declining, without it, to accept the advice of their Ministers. Finally, there was no foundation for the suggestion that the action he had taken was dictated by a desire to undermine the position of Congress Ministers. Neither the Governors nor the Governor-General had any desire to interfere.