The court clarified the jurisdiction and powers of Magistrates and the Special Tribunal under the Martial Law Ordinance, emphasizing the legality of arrest outside the Martial Law area and the authority of the Special Tribunal to try offenders found outside the area for offences committed within it.

Spencer, J.

1. This is an application for the issue of a writ of Habeas Corpus to cause the person of Kochunni Elaya Nair to be brought up before the High Court for the purpose of determining the legality of his detention. The accompanying affidavit states that Kochunni Elaya Nair the second stanee of the Mannarghat Nair family was arrested on September 3rd and imprisoned in the Palghat Sub-Jail. It is alleged that he had at the moment of arrest just arrived at his own residence situated within the limits of the Palghat Municipality and that after some question being put to him as to the Moplah outbreak at Mannarghat the Assistant Superintendent of Police directed the Inspector to take him into the Sub-jail, that no warrant of arrest was shown to him and that he was not told anything about the offence with which he was charged. He was accordingly taken to the Sub-Jail, and on the 6th September an application for bail was put in before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Palghat and was summarily rejected. It is added that the Taluk of Palghat, and the town of Palghat within which the petitioners residence and the Sub-Jail are situated, are outside the Martial Law area.

2. The Public Prosecutor informs us that he is instructed by the District Magistrate of Malabar to say that the accused is charged with having committed offences under Sections 121, 395, 431, 436, and 380 I.P.C. and abetment of the same committed within the Martial Law area and that he will be sent up for trial by the Special Tribunal constituted under Ordinance No. Ill of 1921 of the Government of India published in the Gazette of India, September 5,1921.

3. Mr. Section Srinivasa Iyengar on behalf of the petitioner contends (1) that the accused could not be legally arrested for ad offence committed inside the Martial Law area when he was at the time of arrest at a place outside it and (2) that the Magis trate Mr. Batty, before whom he was brought and who refused to release him on bail was at Palghat, a place outside the Martial law area, and had no jurisdiction to exercise his powers at that spot seeing that Clause 6 of Ordinance No. II of 1921 dated 26th August 1921 provides for the constitution of summary courts of criminal jurisdiction for the purposes of tnis Ordinance in any administration area that may be proclaimed as a Martial Law area under Clause 2. He argues that "in any administration area" means within the area and not for that area.

4. The first point for which the learned Vakil is contending is a very strange one. It amounts to this that an offender has only to slip out of the Martial Law area to be immun from arrest and trial for acts done by him inside that area. The ordinary rule as to jurisdiction is that it is the areawithin which the offence is committed and not the place where the offender may be found that determines the court which has jurisdiction to try the offence: SeeS. 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code authorizes any police officer to arrest without a warrant and without ah order from a Magistrate a person who has been concerned in any cognisable offence, and the offences referred to by the Public Prosecutor or some of them are cognizable offences. Section 58 authorizes a police officer, for the purpose of arresting without warrant any person whom he is authorized to arrest under this Chapter (V) to pursue such person into any place in British India. Section 60 directs a police officer making an arrest without warrant to take the person arrested without unnecessary delay before a Magistrate having jurisdiction in the case. There is no alteration of the law in this respect in consequence of the constitution of Martial Law courts. The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure are not abrogated or suspended by the introduction of Martial Law. On the contrary, Clause 12 and the other clauses of Ordinance No. II indicate that the courts constituted under the ordinance will follow, as far as