Jurisdictional issues and the validity of trial under relevant legal provisions in cases of offences committed in foreign territory.

1. In this case the prisoner has been tried and convicted of criminal breach of trust as a carrier under Section 407 of the Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to 4 years and 6 months rigorous imprisonment and 500 rupees fine, or, in default, to be rigorously imprisoned for a further period of 15 months. The prisoner was originally tried for this offence in 1869, but the High Court, on the 10th January 1870, ordered a retrial. Prisoner however escaped as he was being brought back from the Cannanore Jail and has only lately been rearrested.

2. The evidence for the prosecution tends to show that certain rice was entrusted at Mangalore to prisoner, who was the tindal of a pattimar, for conveyance to one Kesava Naick at Calicut. After prisoner got to sea, instead of taking his pattimar to Calicut, he went off to Goa and there sold the rice.

3. In the case, as formerly tried, it was held by the High Court that, assuming that the deviation of prisoner from his course took place beyond a marine league from the shore, the Court with local jurisdiction would, under certain English Statutes, only have jurisdiction over the offence if there had been a complete conversion of the property at the time and place of the deviation, since deviating from the course with intention to convert or misappropriate, though sufficient under the Indian Penal Code to complete the offence, would not satisfy the English Statute creating the offence of larceny by a carrier. The actual conversion (breaking bulk, &c.) was found to have taken place at Goa. This being foreign territory, the ordinary jurisdiction of the British Indian Courts was excluded, but the Sessions Judge of Mangalore had power to give himself jurisdiction over the offence, though committed in foreign territory, by recording an order under Act I of 1849. The High Court ordered a retrial as the Judge had not thus given himself jurisdiction. But the retrial was prevented by the circumstances already adverted to.

4. The Sessions Judge, before proceeding to retrial of the prisoner, recorded proceedings to the effect that Section 67 of the present Criminal Procedure Code appears to give him jurisdiction though the offence was committed at Goa, that it is very doubtful if the Judge of to-day has any power to give himself jurisdiction to try offences under the repealed Act I of 1849, but that, in order to be on the safe side and avoid, if possible, the necessity for a third trial in this case, he had proceeded to record a formal order giving himself jurisdiction over the offence in question. He added, "this formality together with the provisions of Section; 702 of the present Code will, I trust, be sufficient to prevent the present trial also being set aside."

5. If, as appeared in the former case and as the evidence in the present case shows, the offence was committed at Goa, Section 67 of the Procedure Code cannot give jurisdiction as supposed by the Sessions Judge. That section is part of a Code of Procedure for the trial of offences committed in British India. It extends to the whole of British India, but cannot give the Courts jurisdiction over offences committed beyond the limits of British India. The words "journey or voyage "spoken of in it do not include a voyage on the high seas or in foreign territory, but are confined in their meaning to a journey or voyage within the territories of British India, as down the Ganges or the Buckingham Canal; nor can Section 70 of the Procedure Code render the trial effectual notwithstanding that the Court had not jurisdiction over the offence. That section as well as Section 67 has relation only to a trial of an offence committed in British India, in which the only defect is that some Court in British India, other than the Court which actually tried the charge, had local jurisdiction over the offence. Nor can an order under Act I of 1849 give the Judge jurisdiction or validate the trial. That Act was repealed by Act XI of 1872, and that latter Act has