6 - ‘The Bengal Boiler’

Summary

In Calcutta in the 1860s, there was litigation in the newly established High Court over the rights of Indians who worked the land. Using English legal concepts, the chief justice saw the agriculturists as being little more than tenants-at-will. He arranged to sit with judges who supported his views until he went on a temporary visit to England. In his absence, two judges decided a case in which attention was given to the customs of Bengal and more extensive rights were accorded to numerous rural workers. After the return of the chief justice, the conflicting case law precipitated what contemporaries came to call The Great Rent Case. A Full Bench of the High Court now found, by a large majority, for those who worked the land. It was as if the new High Court had discovered sufficient self-confidence to assert itself within the colonial life of Bengal. The present study explains the process of judicial decision-making by reference to the influence of three colonial networks in Calcutta.