JUSTICE IN NEPAL. 



119 



deposes. If there be reason to suppose that a witness is prevaricating or 

 concealing some part of what he knows, he is imprisoned until he makes 

 a full revelation. 



Perjurers* and suborners of perjury are fined or corporally, nay even 

 capitally, punished, according to the importance or otherwise of the case, 

 or the extent of the mischief done, and according also to the offender's caste. 



In criminal cases, if the prisoner should volunteer a confession, that 

 confession being taken down in writing and attested by himself, entirely 

 supersedes the necessity of his trial ; no witnesses are called to prove his 

 guilt ; moreover, if the prisoner should be fully convicted by evidence, his 

 confession must nevertheless be had, taken down and signed by himself ; 

 and before such confession under his own hand is obtained, he cannot be 

 punished. If he be sullenly silent, he is first scolded and menaced and 

 frightened ; if these means fail, he is flogged with the corah, until he 

 confesses ; and then his kail-namah is written. 



He may always demand confrontation with his accuser, and cross- 

 examine the evidence against him. 



If in penal cases, he should persist in affirming his innocence, and 

 declare that the accuser and his witnesses are his enemies, then he may 

 have the ordeal, but he cannot purge himself by any sort of oath 

 ( sapat kriya ). 



In cases of signed and attested bonds, &c., if the attesting witnesses 

 are dead, or not forthcoming, and no other satisfactory evidence is pro- 

 curable, resort is had to ordeal. If in a case of debt the plaintiff produce a 

 note of acknowledgment of the debt by the defendant, and the defendant 

 deny the note to be his, and the fact cannot be ascertained by evidence 

 as to his hand or any other sort of evidence, the defendant is brought by 

 threats and scolding to admit the note as his, but if he persist in a denial. 



Strictly speaking false testimony, not perjury, is the object of judicial vengeance. 

 All objections to testimony go to the credibility— not to the competency ; there being no 

 recognised exclusions of evidence. H. 



