JUSTICE IN NEPAL. 



99 



shape, in any other court of the Capital or its environs* as they must be 

 referred to it, prior to and for sentence, if they originate in any court of 

 the mountains or of the Tarai. But all other causes of a criminal or 

 quasi criminal nature, (such as trespass, assau.lt, battery, slander, 

 reviling, &c. which in Nepal are punished by whipping, petty fines, and 

 short imprisonment, and for which the plaintiff can never have a civil 

 action of damages) may be heard in any of the four courts of Kathmandii, 

 or in any court of the provinces — as may all civil actions whatever with- 

 out limitation," 



§ 3, Officers attached to the courts and their several functions. 



All the four courts are under the control of one, and the same supreme 

 judge, called the Ditha. 



There are two Bicharis, or judges for each of the three courts, Kot 

 Singh, Taksdr, and Dhansdr, who conduct the interrogation of the parties 

 and ascertain the truth of their statements. Subordinate to the Bicharis 

 are the following executive officers : 



For the Kot Singh or supreme civil court — 

 1 Kharddr, 1 Jemadar, 2 Amalddrs, and 



1 Major, 2 Havilddrs, 40 Sipdhis.-\ 



" The Bichdris are, originally and properly, the judges. They were so 

 every where before the conquest. They are so still, except in the metro- 

 politan courts. The Ditha, or president extraordinary of all the courts, 



* The great valley, and its immediate neighbourhood naturally form the peculiar domaiu 

 of the Metropolitan Courts, but definite legal bounds of jurisdiction are unknown to the system 

 and alien to its genius and character. The rivers Dud Cost and Trisul Ganga are the eastern 

 and western limits respectively of the local jurisdiction, in the first instance, of the Courts of 

 the Capital. H. 



t These military terms, current below, prove nothing against what has been noted above, 

 as to the absolute independence of the civil institutions of Nepal upon Moslem models. The 

 GorMas borrowed their military system entirely from below, but from us not from the Moghels. 

 Here and there indeed the Mussulman name of a civil functionary has crept into use of late, 

 but is " vox et prEeterea nihil." The sipdhts, are not regulars, but a sort of militia or pro- 

 vincials, exclusively attached to the courts. H. 



