The Patna Case, 1777 to 1779

The Kazi and Muftis went to the house, after difficulty and a dispute about whether Khwaja Zakaria was the widow's attorney, got in, locked it up and sealed some of the doors. They returned a few days later and made an inventory. It was said that on that occasion they behaved very roughly, compelling the plaintiff by threats of force to leave one room after another until she took refuge in a filthy outhouse open to a common bazaar, and that after further indignities she retired to the dargah of Shah Azam, a shrine inhabited by faqirs who gave her hospitality.

A guard was set on her by the Council there, in the words of a letter from Mr Law to Hastings, "to intimidate her to give up the slave-women, papers, and seal of the deceased". She remained under restraint for about three months. At first the guards would not even allow the faqirs to give her food, and they did so secretly; the strictness was afterwards relaxed.

The report the officers were never asked for

The Kazi and Muftis then held an inquiry and sent in a report, delivered before 20 January 1777.

It began by describing itself as a report "on the right of inheritance claimed by the widow and nephew", and described its authors as having been "appointed in an inquiry relative to the right of inheritance claimed respectively by the widow and nephew".

That was not the fact. They had been appointed only to take an inventory, lock up the goods under seal, and report to the Council. Deciding a disputed right of inheritance is an entirely different thing.

The report then stated the nature of the dispute for the first time: that Bahadur Beg claimed as adopted son, that the widow claimed under a will and a deed of gift, and that both the will and the deed of gift were forged. It recommended that the property, excluding the altamgha (a revenue-free grant, which they said formed no part of the inheritance), be divided into four shares, three to Bahadur Beg and one to the widow.

How the facts were ascertained is the part a law student should dwell on. There was no proceeding in the nature of a trial. The most important facts were established by statements made in casual conversation, not on oath, and in some instances by writing notes to persons regarded as witnesses and receiving verbal answers back. Impey observed with justice that they accepted the bare statement of the claimant as proof of his claim because it "appeared clear and explicit", without any evidence at all. Stephen's own conclusion is that the report betrays such an absolute unconsciousness of the plainest requirements of evidence as to give an impression of innocence and good faith.

The suit and the judgment

The widow sued the members of the Patna Provincial Council and the law officers in the Supreme Court at Calcutta.

The Court gave judgment for the plaintiff, and assessed the damages on the principle that she had been deprived of property in her possession, to which she was not shown not to be entitled, by an act corrupt and oppressive in its essence and executed in a way needlessly brutal and offensive.

The damages were three lakhs of rupees. Some of the law officers were afterwards sued separately and Rs 15,000 damages were given.

What the case proves, on the evidence

Four points are clear on the record and an answer that gives them is well grounded.

The widow was treated with great harshness and underwent great indignities, and she never received even the quarter of the property the report had assigned to her.

The report was, whether made in good faith or not, to the last degree weak and poor, and rested on no evidence in any recognisable sense.

The Patna Council was guilty of a gross desertion of duty. The proof is not the Supreme Court's judgment but a letter from Warren Hastings to the Patna Council of 12 January 1778, who certainly had no leaning towards the Supreme Court, taking notice of great irregularity in the proceedings of the law officers, whose business had been solely to take an inventory.

And if Patna was a fair specimen, the Provincial Councils considered as courts of justice were worthless, and no system of justice deserving the name existed at that time outside Calcutta. That is Stephen's conclusion and it is the conclusion the case is set for.

What can fairly be said on the other side

Impey's view was that the proceeding was gross oppression and plunder of a helpless widow, effected by a false accusation of forgery. Mr Law, of the Patna Council, wrote to Hastings that the struggle was really between Khwaja Zakaria and others on one side and Bahadur Beg on the other, for the charge of the widow and the possession of the estate, "and this is ever the case where the widow has a claim to any considerable inheritance". Warren Hastings, in a minute, gave reasons for thinking that the deeds really were forged and that the report was not only made in good faith but was true.

Stephen says frankly that he has not studied the question enough to give an opinion, and that strong observations arise on both sides. A student is entitled to say the same. Whether the widow's deeds were genuine was never properly tried by anybody, and that is the point: the objection to what the Patna Council did is not that they reached the wrong result but that they reached a result without a trial.

Distinctions worth having straight

A worked example

Take the same facts and change one of them at a time, to see exactly which fact decided the case.

As it happened. Shahbaz Beg Khan dies at Patna, in the mofussil. His nephew Bahadur Beg petitions the Patna Provincial Council; the Council orders its Kazi and Muftis to take an inventory and report; they go far beyond that order, and the widow Nadirah Begum sues the members of the Council and the law officers in the Supreme Court at Calcutta, which entertains the suit, gives judgment for her and assesses damages at three lakhs of rupees.

Change one fact: the property is in Calcutta. Then the Supreme Court's jurisdiction is not open to doubt at all. Everything contentious in the case comes from the property and the parties being in the mofussil, where the Company's own courts sat under the Company's own regulations.

Change another: the defendants are not the Company's servants. The Supreme Court's jurisdiction over persons in the mofussil rested on their being in the Company's service, and it was that link, and how far it reached, that the Regulating Act had left unclear.

Change a third: the case is heard after 1781. Then the Settlement Act's protection of provincial judges applies: no action lies in the Supreme Court against a judicial officer of a country court in respect of a judgment or order of his court, nor against any person for an act done in pursuance of such an order. Whether the bar reaches these facts depends on how the law officers' acts are characterised, which the chapter has already discussed; what is certain is that the inheritance itself would be decided by Muslim law, as that Act directs.

That is the point of the case in one line. The Patna case is not about whether the Council decided the inheritance rightly; it is about whether a court in Calcutta could sit in judgment on the Company's officers for the way they had decided it in Patna, and Parliament's answer in 1781 was to protect them.

What beginners get wrong

"The Supreme Court interfered with a decision of a Company court." It gave damages against officials for acts done outside the authority they were given. The Kazi and Muftis were told to take an inventory and instead decided an inheritance, and the Council acted on it. Compare [Gora Chand's Case: Dutt v. Hosea, 1779], where the act complained of really was a judicial act and the Court's stated position protected it.

"The damages were against the Kazi and Muftis." The suit was against the members of the Provincial Council and the law officers, and the three lakhs was the award in that suit. Some law officers were sued separately afterwards and Rs 15,000 was given.

"Hastings supported the widow." Hastings thought the deeds probably were forged. What he criticised was the irregularity of the officers' proceedings, and that criticism is worth citing precisely because it comes from a man opposed to the Supreme Court.

Limits and criticism

The case is the strongest evidence in the whole syllabus that something outside the Company was needed, and it is also the clearest illustration of why the remedy chosen did not work.

Three lakhs of rupees was a very large sum, awarded against individual members of a Provincial Council for the acts of officers under them. Whatever the merits, an award on that scale, in a court sitting hundreds of miles away, applying English law and English notions of procedure to a Muslim inheritance at Patna, was certain to be experienced by the Company's servants as an attack, and it was. The Patna case, more than any other, is what turned the Council's irritation into a determination to be rid of the Court's jurisdiction, and the Cossijurah crisis followed within a year.

The right conclusion is the uncomfortable one. The Court was substantially right about what had been done to Nadirah Begum, and the remedy it gave made the constitutional crisis worse rather than better. Only Parliament could resolve that, and in 1781 it did, by taking the provincial courts and their officers out of the Supreme Court's reach altogether.

Quick revision

• Shahbaz Beg Khan died at Patna 10 December 1776; his widow Nadirah Begum in possession.
• Nephew Bahadur Beg petitioned the Patna Provincial Council within three weeks, claiming as adopted son.
• The Council ordered the Kazi and Muftis to take an inventory and report. They proceeded ex parte, sealed the house, drove the widow out, and a guard was set on her at a shrine for about three months.
• Their report decided a question they were never asked: the deeds were forged, three quarters to Bahadur Beg, one quarter to the widow, excluding the altamgha. It rested on statements not on oath and on notes answered verbally.
• The widow sued in the Supreme Court; judgment for her; damages three lakhs of rupees; Rs 15,000 afterwards against law officers sued separately.
• Warren Hastings himself criticised the irregularity, in a letter to the Patna Council of 12 January 1778.

Test yourself

1. What were the Kazi and Muftis actually directed to do, and what did they do? They were directed to take an inventory of the property, secure it under seal until decision and division, and report to the Council. They instead held an inquiry into the disputed right of inheritance and reported that the widow's will and deed of gift were forged and that three quarters of the estate should go to the claimant.

2. On what principle did the Supreme Court assess damages, and how much were they? On the principle that she had been deprived of property in her possession, to which she was not shown not to be entitled, by an act corrupt and oppressive in its essence and executed in a needlessly brutal and offensive way. The damages were three lakhs of rupees, with a further Rs 15,000 in separate suits against law officers.

3. Give the evidence, independent of the Supreme Court, that the Patna Council failed in its duty. Warren Hastings, who had no leaning towards the Supreme Court, wrote to the Patna Council on 12 January 1778 taking notice of great irregularity in the proceedings of the law officers, whose business had been solely to take an inventory.

4. Was it ever decided whether the widow's deeds were genuine? No. Hastings thought they probably were forged; Impey thought the whole proceeding was a plunder of a helpless widow effected by a false accusation of forgery; Stephen declined to give an opinion. The objection to the Council's conduct is that it produced a result without any proceeding in the nature of a trial.

5. Why did this case make the constitutional crisis worse? Because a very large award of damages against the members of a Provincial Council, made by a distant English court applying English notions to a Muslim inheritance, convinced the Company's servants that the Court's jurisdiction had to be resisted, and the Cossijurah crisis followed within a year.