JUSTICE IN INDIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11030, 19 March 1914, Page 1

JUSTICE IN INDIA.

PRISONERS HANGED AFTER ACQUITTAL. EXTRAORDINARY REVELATIONS. ■ Following on correspondence between Mr Swift MacNoill, M.P.. and Mr Montagu, Under Secretary for India, the former has sent to the' Press.what ho describes as a " startling .revelation " with reference to- murdei" trials in India.

The .Indian. Government has the power to appeal against orders of-ac-quittal made in murder trials in which natives are accused, and Mr MacNeill has been furnished with an official return, giving the following facts for ten years (1902-11).':—'

Number of case's in which tho

Government appealed against acquittal. on -murder charges, 254 Number of appeals allowed . 157 Convicted of capital, offence . 89 Sentenced to death . . .''' • 27

One of the death sentences'was eventually commuted by a local Governor to transportation for life. Mr MacNeill says he asked for the return in the House of Commons in July. Mr Montagu received the return from Simla on October 18, and forwarded it to Mr MacNeill on November 26.; Commenting ..on these dates, Mr MacNeill says in a letter to Mr Montagu : " " The delay in forwarding to mo this report, having regard to its startling revelations, I Understand and appreciate. You were probably moved by feelings similar to my oivn, for, with a knowledge not of the very special character you possess of the intensity of Indian unrest, of which

anyone moderately conversant with public affairs is seized, J have for some time hesitated as to the publication of this shocking document, which I now give to the Press." Mr MacNeill proceeds to remark that the retrial of anyone after an acquittal on a criminal charge, not to 1 say a capital charge, is absolutely unthinkable. The notion is abhorrent to the genius of English jurisprudence; so much so, that in England at least.- alter two trials on a criminal charge w.liich result in disagreements of juries, tho prosecution is, according to the usual practice, dropped by the entering'of a nolle prosequi on the part of the Crown.

"On the whole, the reflection is not pleasant that with respect to these twenty-six individuals, who, having been acquitted of murder, wero retried becauso they -were natives, convicted- and executed, their executions, had they taken place in those countries would have been wilful murders instead of the carrying out of the law—wilful murders for which everyone concerned in them, judicially or ministerially, would have been guilty of wilful murder, either as a principal in tho first degree, a pinnpal in the second degree, or an accessory before the fact. In such a condition of things does not the self-approval of some nf +J'-: gentlemen to whom the- govcmmujnt; and administration of India are entrusted, savour, albeit unconsciously of hypocrisy?"