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25. Coming to the Administration Report, I propose to quote a few more passages. After recounting the hardships of the ryot in the Civil Court, Mr. Lyall mentions "the impudent forgery" committed every day by zemindars, and remarks thus:

When I first came to the District, I never heard of such cases. The action taken on Rashbehari's and Griridhari Marwari's case, now often brings me two or three men a day asking me to redress wrongs thus done them. The matter is one calling for the very serious attention of Government, for what loyalty can there ultimately be to a Government which allows itself to be used as an instrument whereby the strong can oppress the weak? The difficulty is, I am aware, very great. I would suggest, as a temporary palliative, that where the plea set up in a written statement of the defendant is one of forgery, the Magistrate should be informed with a view to an inquiry and to his intervening with any evidence the inquiry secured, before the decree was passed. This, of course, does not reach the many ex parte cases there are.

For the rest, things have now greatly improved between landlords and tenants. Rashbehari Mandal was forced, through the knowledge he could not escape conviction for forgery, to apply to be declared a disqualified proprietor. His prayer was accepted, and now the Court of Wards is managing. Babu Rajendra Narain Singh of Koria Patti, through fear of future similar criminal cases against him, voluntarily appointed a reliable European Manager and cut himself off from all management.

26. Whether the European Manager was voluntarily appointed or not, the fact is apparent from the above, that the presence of the European Manager was a check to criminal prosecution, On the face of the admission contained in the above passage, it is not surprising that Rajendra Narayan Singh now contends that his present prosecution is due to his refusal to have a European Manager. It will be seen that from none of the passages that I have quoted, and indeed from no part of the extracts in the Gazetteer, is there the faintest suggestion that Rajendra Narayan's character was such as to make him a fit subject for a prosecution of this nature. Mr. Lyall in mentioning Rashbehary Mandal, the Maharaja of Sonebarsa and Babu Rajendra Narayan Singh has candidly said: "I mention these names only, but I fear that many landlords not mentioned are in a similar category." So it comes to this, that according to that District Magistrate, this petitioner is no better, nor worse, than the run of zemindars of the District of Bhagalpur. It is hardly necessary to dwell on the futility of indicting a whole class, and the prosecution of the zemindars of Bhagalpur under Section 110, which is the logical sequence to the reasonings expressed in the extracts and adopted as the basis of action in this case, will be a course that no administration can sanction. If the law be thought to be improper or inconvenient, as Mr. Lyall thinks it to be, application to correct it must be made elsewhere, and we must not break down the rules of law or strain them because they cause hardship. It is clear from the quotations I have given that up to 1908, the petitioner did not come within the purview of Section 110. Even granting the allegations of forgery against him to be sustainable in respect of his dealings with his tenants, a prosecution under Section 110 could not lie. I cannot conceive that a District or Sub-Divisional Officer would enter into negotiations with a man who was an habitual thief, receiver of a stolen property, associate of dacoits and was hazardous to the community. I can only assume that they themselves did not believe that the description applied to the man. Mr. Roy has rightly laid emphasis on Mr. Bainbridge's Standing Order No. 12, wherein that officer protests his intention to cast no slur on the Babu Saheb.

I now proceed to examine the Police report. In it there are 16 cases from 1891 to 1910 that are shown as cases in which the accused has been suspected to have taken part. Of these 16, there are only two that are of the years 1908 and 1910 and all the rest are of the previous years. The one of 1908, is Case No. 4, dated 7th April 1908, under Section 395 of the Indian Penal Code, that is, of a date prior to the decision to drop the 110 proceedings that were threatened in that year. The other case is Case No. 3, dated 28th December, 1910 Section 395 of the Indian Penal Code. Thus, since 1908, this is the only one case in which it is alleged that the petitioner had been suspected to have taken part. Cases in which the petitioner has been known to have taken part are according to the Police report five in number. The first case is of dacoity alleged to have taken place 20 years ago in which he was tried and acquitted. The second case is dated the 26th of July 1905, in which he was sent up and tried under Sections 342, 347 and 341, but was let off with a warning. The third case is one under Section 342, Indian Penal Code, in 1909 when he was an accused along with his servants but the case was compromised. The 4th and 5th case are under Section 352, Indian Penal Code, both of the same date, i.e., 2nd June 1911. Both these cases were compromised. Thus a careful examination of the Police report discloses only one case since 1908 in which the petitioner is alleged to have been suspected of taking part and only three cases since 1908 in which the petitioner has been known to have taken part. We must not overlook the face that one of these latter was a case of wrongful confinement only, and the remaining two were cases of simple assault. The fact that all these three cases were compromised goes very far in favour of the petitioner to show that none of these cases was serious. Indeed it is difficult to conceive how cases under Section 352 could be serious. Of the cases alleged against him, the most serious is the first in which he was tried 20 years ago and acquitted. Apart from the fact that the incident of that case is of a far distant date, I have far too much respect for judicial decisions, of what so ever Court they may be, so long as they are not reversed, to hold contrary to them in respect of the facts they have decided, and I for my part cannot ascribe any turpitude to the petitioner in respect of that case. In R. v. Plummer (1902) 2 K.B. 339 at p. 349; 71 L.J.K.B. 805; 66 J.P. 647; 86 L.T. 836 18 T.L.R. 659; 51 W.R. 137; 20 Cox. C.C. 243 Bruce, J., held: "I think it is a very dangerous principle to adopt to regard a verdict of not guilty as not fully establishing the innocence of the person to whom it relates." The second case is in respect of offences relating to wrongful confinement or wrongful restraint, but obviously they were of so trivial a nature that the petitioner, according to the Police report itself, was let off with a warning. In respect of the three cases that are said to have been compromised, the learned Advocate-General asks us to hold that compromise connotes admission, on the part of the petitioner, of his guilt. In support of this proposition, he urges that no man who is innocent would agree to compromise a case as from the dictates of morality; if innocent, he would demand a trial and an honourable acquittal. This argument, I am sure, the learned Advocate-General would never have advanced if he had taken the trouble to find out cases in which prosecutions under Section 211, Indian Penal Code, had been sanctioned against the complainants with whom the accused had compounded. One such case, I may mention here, is Queen-Empress v. Atar Ali 11 C. 79. But, even without a reference to any such cases, I do not hesitate to say that it is contrary to principles of administration of criminal justice to hold that the accused is guilty without the prosecution proving his guilt. The learned Advocate-General in the proposition he has enunciated asks us to presume where presumption is forbidden. In King v. Brett (1806) 5 Esp. 259 at p. 261 Lord Ellenborough said: "In a criminal case, I can presume nothing." Section 345 of the Code of Criminal Procedure lays it down that the composition of an offence under this section shall have the effect of the acquittal of the accused. We cannot alter the law; we are bound to proceed according to it as it at present is.

44. The petitioner, Rajendra Narayan Singh, an elderly gentleman, about 51 years of age, has been an Honorary Magistrate for twenty years, and is a zemindar of considerable means; he asserts that his annual income is about Rs. 30,000, the Police report estimates his income at Rs. 25,000. For some years past, there have been differences between him and the District Officers as to the management of his properties, which lie in the Madhipura and Supaul Sub-Divisions. The petitioner believes that he had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the District Magistrate because his brother had helped one Babu Rashbihari Mandal, when the latter was prosecuted by the authorities. This suggestion has been repudiated by the Crown as unfounded; it is, as a matter of fact, wholly immaterial for the purposes of the case before me. I shall assume that the petitioner lost the confidence of the District Magistrate, because the Magistrate was not satisfied as to the management of his properties. This is clear from the letter addressed by the District Magistrate on the 26th February 1908 to the petitioner, in which the Magistrate expressed the opinion that the petitioner should resign the post of Honorary Magistrate, because it was most undesirable that in view of the past and the then existent tension between the petitioner and his tenants, he should continue to hold the post. In reply to this letter, the petitioner submitted a representation and prayed that the Magistrate might reconsider the matter and change his opinion. The representation, however, had no effect, and on the 30th March 1908, the Sub-Divisional Officer of Supaul recorded an order to the effect that in view of the strained relation existing between Babu Rajendra Narayan Singh and his tenants, it was undesirable that he should attend the sittings of the Bench till amicable relations were restored between himself and his tenants. This order explicitly stated that there was no intention to cast any slur on the "Babu Saheb"; the intention, it was added, was to take a temporary measure for the purpose of indicating "the dignity and lofty attribute which the title of Honorary Magistrate must always confer upon those who enjoy the high privilege of sitting in that honourable position." After this order, the petitioner submitted a representation to the District Magistrate, in which he wanted to establish that the charge of oppression of his tenants, brought against him, was, if not wholly unfounded, at least grossly exaggerated. The original representation, dated the 22nd May 1908, together with the marginal notes made thereon by the District Magistrate, has been produced in this Court. A great deal of comment appears to have been made on the representation and the notes, before the learned Judges who heard the case in the first instance; a suggestion was made that the allegations of the petitioner against which nothing was noted by the Magistrate at the time, should be assumed as correct. I am of opinion that any such inference would be wholly unjustifiable. The Magistrate made such marginal notes as he considered necessary at the time; he had not the remotest idea then that omission to controvert any specific allegation might be treated as an admission of its accuracy. The only fair way to deal with this representation and the marginal notes of the Magistrate thereon, is to take the allegations of the petitioner for what they are worth and to regard the comments of the Magistrate as an expression of his views on the matter at that stage. The District Magistrate, at this time, it is said, suggested to the petitioner that he should appoint an European Manager of his properties; this is repudiated, and it is suggested on behalf of the Crown that the proposal first came from the advisers of the accused. Mean-while, steps had been taken, as we now know, for the institution of proceedings against the petitioner under Section 110 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In fact, the Police report on which the present proceedings are founded states explicitly, in the seventh column, that at that time more than 200 witnesses were examined by the Sub-Divisional Officer for this purpose, but the matter was dropped and time was gives to the petitioner to correct himself. The petitioner suggests that the intended proceedings were dropped on condition that he should appoint an European Manager and place the management of all his properties in his hands. This is borne out by the statement of the present District Magistrate who, in the fourth paragraph of the letter addressed by him to the Registrar of this Court on the 8th July 1912, in answer to this Rule, states that Mr. Brae was appointed Manager by Rajendra Narayan Singh, because "the appointment of a competent European Manager was made the condition of the droppings of proceedings under Section 110, which Rajendra Narayan Singh's treatment of his tenants had then made necessary." In my opinion, it is clear beyond the possibility of dispute that in 1908 proceedings under Section 110 were about to be taken against Rajendra Narayan Singh, that, as now stated in the Police report, 200 witnesses had been examined for the purpose, and, that the proceedings contemplated were dropped because Rajendra Narayan Singh, on whose suggestion it is not very material to inquire, agreed to appoint a competent European Manager. This view is sought to be supported by extracts from the volume of the Bengal District Gazetteer which deals with Bhagalpore. A question was raised as to the admissibility in evidence of extracts from the Gazetteer, but I do not think there is really any room for discussion as to the admissibility of an extract from a book of this character, if the extract itself is relevant for the purposes of the inquiry before the Court. It is worthy of note that in the case of Fanindra Deb Raikat v. Rajeswar Das 11 C.463; 13 I.A. 72 their Lordships of the Judicial Committee relied upon Hunter's Statistical Account of Darjeeling upon the question of the history of the aboriginal tribe of Kochs. See also Dino Nath v. Chundi Koch 16 C.L.J. 14; 16 Ind. Cas. 349. Similarly, in Garurudhwaja v. Suparanadhaja 27 I.A. 238 at p. 243; 5 C.W.N. 33; 23 A. 37; 10 M.L.J. 267; 2 Bom. L.R. 851 (P.C.) their Lordships relied upon Atkinson's Gazetteer upon a historical question as to the foundation of Hatras Estate. Again, this Court, in In re Drachefels 27 C. 860 at p. 867, relied upon Hunter's Gazetteer upon a question of the course of the River Hoogly, while in Shyamanand Das v. Rama Kanta Das 32 C. 6 reliance was placed upon Hunter's Statistical Account upon a question relating to the history of Orissa. There can be no question that the Court may resort for its aid to a book of this character, under Section 57 of the Indian Evidence Act, on all matters of public history, literature, science or art. In the case before me, the petitioner relies upon extracts from the Bengal District Gazetteer to show that his treatment by the Magistrate in 1908 is in harmony with the views forcibly stated by the Magistrate in his Administration Reports for the years 1907-3 and 1908-9. The extracts in question give expression to opinions as to the strained relations between landlords and tenants, the alleged oppression of the former upon the latter, and the supposed failure of the ordinary Courts to afford adequate protection to the weak and the ignorant. I am not directly concerned in the present case with the question of the correctness or propriety of the views of Executive Officers frankly and emphatically expressed, and it is plainly beyond the province of this Court to comment upon opinions, on what must be deemed political and administrative matters of a highly controversial character, set out in official publications; but what does concern the present case, is to be found in two passages, one in the report for 1907-8 and the other in the report for 1908-9. In the former report, reference is made to exactions from tenants by landlords amongst whom are mentioned Babu Rashbihari Mandal and the Maharajah of Sonebarsa; this is followed by the observation that Babu Rajendra Narayan Singh has been attempting the same game and inquiries have been made how far he has gone. In the report for the following year, it is stated with reference to Babu Rashbehari Mandal that he was forced, through the knowledge that he could not escape conviction for forgery, to apply to be declared a disqualified proprietor, and reference is made to the decision in Rash Behary Lall Mondal v. King