History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c20.133.4

v2.c20.133.4

this privilege was gradually extended to persons not ordained viz. to doorkeepers, readers, exorcists (all of whom merely assisted the clergy) and finally to all who could read or pretended to read a few words from the Bible. Holdsworth, Pollock and Maitland admit that the procedure in the ecclesiastical courts was little better than a farce (P and M vol. I. p. 426, Holdsworth vol. III p. 296). The ecclesiastic courts never pronounced a judgment of blood, the bishop only deprived the offending clerk of orders, and relegated him to a monastery, or kept him in prison for life or a shorter period and very rarely whipping and branding were ordered. Even in the first quarter of the 20th century, European British subjects and Europeans and Americans in general could claim in British India some startling privileges when charged with criminal offences which even the brāhmaṇas of over two thousand years ago did not claim. For example, under Sec. 443 of the Criminal Procedure Code of India (as it existed before 1923) they could not be tried by any Indian Magistrate (however senior and experienced) and that in serious cases like murder, even a Sessions Judge who was himself an European British subject could not sentence an European British subject to more than one year's imprisonment (Section 449).