BEGINNING OF THE ADALAT SYSTEM
• In 1756, Siraj-ud-Daula attacked Calcutta and turned the British out of
Bengal.
• However, in 1757 under the leadership of Clive, British once again
gained in the Battle of Plassey and placed Mir Jafar on the throne. Thus
the company became the supreme ruler of Bengal.
• By 1760, Mir Jafar lost the trust with the company and he was replaced
with Mir Qasim. The fact that the company could bring about changes in
nawabship implicates that the real power of Bengal had already passed
into the hands of the Company.
• In 1763, once again Mir Qasim was relaced with Mir Jafar.
• In 1756, Siraj-ud-Daula attacked Calcutta and turned the British out of
Bengal.
• However, in 1757 under the leadership of Clive, British once again
gained in the Battle of Plassey and placed Mir Jafar on the throne. Thus
the company became the supreme ruler of Bengal.
• By 1760, Mir Jafar lost the trust with the company and he was replaced
with Mir Qasim. The fact that the company could bring about changes in
nawabship implicates that the real power of Bengal had already passed
into the hands of the Company.
• In 1763, once again Mir Qasim was relaced with Mir Jafar.
SIGNIFICANCE OF DIWANI
• Under the Mugal administration, the government in the province, also
known as Subah, was conducted by two main dignitaries, the Nawab and
the Diwan. Both the dignitaries were appointed by the central
government.
• The Nawab also known as Nazim, was the head of the government and
military and was entrusted with the maintenance of law and order. The
department under his control was known as the Nizamat.
• He also supervised the administration of criminal justice in the province.
• Diwan, the other dignitary was below the Nazim in position of authority.
• The Diwan had to collect revenue and decide the revenue and civil cases.
His department was known as Diwani.
• The Diwan would collect the revenue, defray the expenses of the Nizamat
and deposit the rest into the central treasury.
• The idea of keeping these two functionaries in a subah and dividing the
administrative functions between them was to create a system of checks
and balances.
• Thus, since the company was vested with the power and functions of
Diwani, its role was the collection the revenue and the administration of
the civil and revenue cases.
• However, the Company entered into a treaty with the Nawab and agreed
to pay an annual sum of fifty three lac rupees to the Nawab for his
maintenance. In the treaty it was agreed that the company will maintain
the military and the Nawab agreed not to keep any military under him.
• Thus, the company obtained the rights of collecting the revenue as well as
maintaining the army from the Nawab, thereby becoming the de facto
authority in Bengal.
• The responsibility of dispensing criminal justice was however left with
the Nawab, who was forced to meet the required expenses from the
annual maintenance amount of 53 lakhs that he obtained from the
Company.
• The company did not take over the Diwani functions at once and rather
appointed two Indian officers for collection of revenue and
administration of justice in revenue and civil cases.
• The company servants only supervised the two officers.
• However, the system proved highly inefficient and ruinous for the
country. Once a prosperous state, Bengal quickly fell in the grip of
economic ruin.
• Every person worked for their personal advancement and nobody looked
into the welfare of the people. The company suspected misappropriation
on the part of Indian officers, though a contributing factor was the attitude
of Company’s share holders for higher and higher dividends that led to
oppression of peasantry by the Indian officials.
• In order to improve the situation, in 1769, Governor Verelst appointed
Company’s servants as supervisors in the districts.
• The function of the supervisors was not to collect revenue directly,
rather they were
• to collect information regarding condition of soil,
• collection of revenue,
• administration of justice,
• check corruption and
• supervise the Indian revenue and judicial officials.
• The supervisors were instructed to inquire into the causes of the chaos in
the judicial system and to enforce what was justified according to the law
of the land.
• It was instructed to ensure maintenance of proper registers of all
causes and the determinations given by the judges as well as the kazis
and Brahmins who administered justice among the Muslims and Hindus
in villages were to be summoned to produce their sanads that were to be
properly registered so that persons without proper authority would not
indulge in exercising jurisdiction.
• However the scheme of supervisors failed miserably for several reasons-
• The number of supervisors was small and their duties were
multi-fold.
• They had no experience and training for the job as the appointed
supervisors were mostly British servants having three to four years of
administrative experience.
• They themselves started exploiting people and misusing their
positions to carry on private trade and serve their self-interest.
• In order to reap full benefits of the Diwani, in 1771, the company
decided to take over the complete control of Diwani functions and
decided to discharge them directly through their own servants.
• The Governor and Council at Calcutta henceforth were to become
responsible for providing solutions for various administrative problems.
• It was out of this ground that the new judicial system in the mofussil was
to emerge.
• Thus in 1772, Warren Hastings, the then Governor of Calcutta, put up a
new scheme for the collection of revenue.
• Along with this, a new plan for the administration for the administration
of justice in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was also initiated.
• It must be noted here that for long, judicial administration remained
subsidiary to the revenue administration.
• The work relating to civil and criminal justice was dealt with by the
Revenue department till May 1793, when a separate Judicial
Department was established.
