31*8 



dimensions, capable of being studied and understood instead of 

 having to be fished out in thousands of volumes of the English 

 law reports. The real evil arises from the fact of the law, 

 and criminal law especially, being far too refined^^- for the 

 people for whom it is intended, and its administration having 

 to be entrusted to judges who have no intimate acquaintance 

 with the usages and customs and modes of thought of the 

 people to whom it is applied, or to low-paid native magis- 

 trates who are clothed with enormous powers. The compli- 

 cated procedure and the machinery of appeals prescribed to 

 ensure correct decisions multiply the chances of error and add 

 to the delay, vexation and expense of litigation. It is in view 



13* The late Mr. Etmga Charlu, Dewan of Mysore, made the following remarka 

 on the working of the Penal Code : " It is impossible not to feel some surprise at the com- 

 placency and even admiration with which the working of this theoretic code is usually 

 regarded without considering its eflects on the interests of the people at large. Theo- 

 retical minds carried away by the logical perfection of the code forget the evil effects of 

 its artificial definitions, which are not altogether based on the popular train of ideas. 

 Popular definitions admit of natiiral expansion to meet every new circumstance, while 

 artificial ones perpetually stand under the necessity of artificial expansions which serve 

 only to remove them further from popular thought. It is undeniable that the code is 

 not understood without great effort even by the educated officers, and much less carried in 

 their daily train of thoughts. What must be the effect upon the illiterate population of 

 such legislation bearing on their daily concerns ! Popular experience can only describe 

 the code as a cruel piece of legislation which, in its anxiety that no description of offence 

 might possibly be left out, has framed such wide and comprehensive definitions as to 

 mingle serious crimes and mere civil injuries in the same category, and in order that all 

 aggravated cases might be adequately met, has provided for offences exorbitant and often 

 unlimited fines and imprisonment. It has thus placed the peaceful citizen equaUy with 

 the professional dacoit perpetually under the tender mercies of a not immaculate official 

 hierarchy. Js o one can be sure that any momentary indiscreet act of his might not bring 

 him under the grasp of the Penal Code, and in so bringing him, consign him to a punish- 

 ment, which, to him, may be a social death under the prevailing ideas of religion and 

 custom. . . . Where there is such unlimited latitude of punishment, it is vain to 

 expect that it will be properly exercised. ... A simpler code keeping to popular 

 ideas, with certainty rather than severity of punishment in all ordinary cases, with excep- 

 tional powers confined to special courts, is the want of the country." This was written 

 within 6 or 7 years after the introduction of the Penal Code and it reflects the popular 

 feeling at the time. I myself remember the vague undefined feeling of terror with which 

 the Penal Code was regarded by the rural population soon after it was introduced. Sir Henry 

 Maine also refers to the same feeling in the following remarks : " I have had described to 

 me a collection of street songs sung in the streets of the city which is commonly supposed to 

 be the most impatient of British rule by persons who never so much dreamed of having 

 their words repeated to an Englishman. They were not altogether friendly to the foreign 

 rulei'8 of the country, but it may be broadly laid down that they complained of nothing 

 which might naturally have been expected to be the theme of complaint. And without 

 exception, they declare that life in India had become intolerable since the English criminal 

 laws had begun to treat women and children as if they were men." During the last 

 30 years the experience of the working of the code has led to its provisions being better 

 understood, and it does not inspire the terror that it once did. Even now, however, 

 as regards the punishments prescribed for some offences, the provisions as to certain 

 offences being non -bailable and the compulsorj- enforcement of the attendance of women 

 without distinction of caste or rank, the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure 

 are imsuited to the prevailing ideas of ,the people and their social and religious usages. 

 The consequence of refusing bail to many a Hindu charged with a non-bailable offence 

 is, in some parts of the country, excommunication, a punishment far in excess of the 

 requirements of the offence of which he may or may not be convicted. The fear of com- 

 pulsory personal attendance in courts of respectable women as parties or witnesses 

 is an encouragement to false or vexatious criminal proceedings. And the purchase 

 of immunity from this disgrace by pecuniary payments is a not unlooked-for result in. 

 the institution of such proceedings. 



