'ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, FOR THE YEAR 1862-63’ [‎59v] (114/266)

APPENDIX TO JUDICIAL REPORT*
the principle laid down in the following extract from a letter of the Law Com
missioners, by whom the preparation of the Indian Penal Code was or,gmally under
taken, to which the attention of the Governor General m Conned has been specially
directed in a recent despatch :
“Itappears to us also highly desirable that if the Code shall be adopted, all
those penal laws which the Indian Legislature may, from time to time, find
necessary to pass should be framed in such a manner as to tit into the Code. T eir
language ought to be that of the Code. No word ought to be used in any other sense
than that in which it is used in the Code. The very part of the Code in which the
new Law is to be inserted ought to be indicated. If the new law rescinds or modifies
any provision of the Code, that provision ought to be indicated. In fact, the new
law ought, from the day on which it is passed, to be part of the Code, and to affect
all other provisions of the Code, and to be affected by them, as if it were actually
a Clause of the Original Code. In the next Edition of the Code the new law ought
to appear in its proper place.
Thirdly —Because in replying to the inquiries addressed to him by the Secretary
to the Government of India in the Home Department on this point, the Secretaiy
of the Bombay Government states “ the part referred to by you, viz. that the
Penalties imposed in the Bill on persons escaping from or rescuing from or allowing
offenders in their custody to escape from Reformatories, are heavier than those to
which under the Penal Code persons are liable who commit the corresponding
offences in the case of an ordinary prison, was not specially considered while the Bill
was passing though the Legislatureand further, that “ His Excellency sees no reason
to disapprove of the Act because the Bombay Legislature followed as exactly as
circumstances permitted the provisions of Imperial Acts rather than the analogy
of the Penal Code.”
Even if these propositions could be assented to without disparagement to the principle
above quoted, or to the authority and consistency of the Indian Penal Code, they would
hardly be applicable to the case; for the penalties imposed by the Bill for the Estab
lishment and Regulation of Reformatory Schools for Juvenile Offenders, pasesd by the
Council of Bombay, are not taken exclusively from Acts of the Imperial Parliament for
the Establishment and Regulation of Reformatories, but mainly from the Act for the
Establishment of the Parkhurst Prison, which is an Institution of a very different
character.
I his Bill was passed by the Council of the Governor of Bombay, and has been sub
mitted for the assent of the Governor General.
(19) A Bill to Regulate the Burial or Disposal of the Dead in the Town and Suburbs
of Bombay.
The piactice of disposing of the Dead in the midst of crowded Cities and large
Towns has been long acknowledged to be injurious to the Public Health.
Ihe evils resulting from such a system in England, and which are of tenfold force
in a Iropical climate, were so notorious some years ago, that the subject was continually
being pressed upon Her Majesty’s Government, and at length Burial Acts were passed,
by which the system of intramural burial was totally suppressed. {Vide 13 and 14
Viet. C. 52, 15; and 16 Viet. C. 85 ; and 16 and 17 Viet. C. 134 1
14