HIGH COURT OF MADRAS. 



39 



seem to carry with them more than ordinary severity ; It is 

 agreed that the fine on Terwaddee be remitted." 20 



At a much later period an application was made in a suit 

 in the Mayor's Court to examine a particular witness at the 

 Pagoda, which being refused there was an appeal made first 

 to the Governor in Council, and then to England, which 

 was dismissed by the King in Council (22nd April 1 796) for 

 want of prosecution with £50 costs. 21 



In Calcutta the Court invariably insisted on all Hindoo 

 witnesses, with the exception of those who were Pundits, 

 being sworn on the water of the Granges, though the Grand 

 Jury frequently represented, and the Judges invariably 

 admitted, the obstacles which this practice created to the 

 administration of justice, and hardships it occasioned to 

 conscientious individuals. Respectable witnesses were deter- 

 red from entering the Court, and those who came were not 

 unfrequently committed because they would not act as their 

 consciences forbade them, and the anomaly was more than 

 once seen of a Judge committing a witness, while he gave 

 him credit for the conduct by which the punishment was 

 incurred. Yet no attempt was made to remedy the evil 

 until a Madras Judge, Sir Charles Grey, was appointed 

 Chief Justice of Bengal in 1825. Almost his first act was to 

 exercise the power which it is obvious the Charter intended 

 to confer ; and it was directed that the witness should be 

 sworn in whatever manner was most binding on, and not in 

 that which most outraged his conscience, and if he objected 

 to the Ganges water the Pundit administered the oath in some 

 other form. 22 



20 Wheeler's Madras, vol. iii, p. 143. 



21 Singana Chitty v. Puddananabadoo Chitty ; Strange' s Notes of Cases at 

 Madras, vol. i, p. 67. 



22 Preface to Mr. Longueville Clark's Rules and Orders of the Supreme 

 Court of Bengal. 



