Question

Identify the legislative act that sought to create political equality by vesting Indian judges with the power to try the Europeans or the British citizens residing in India.
1. Morley-Minto Reforms
2. Cripps Mission
3. Pitts India Act
4. Ibert Bill

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 4 : Ibert Bill

The correct answer is IIbert Bill.

• Ilbert Bill is a bill introduced in 1883 for British India by Lord Ripon.
• It was proposed an amendment for existing laws in the country at the time to allow Indian judges and magistrates the jurisdiction to try  British offenders in criminal cases at the District level.
• It was crafted by Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, who was appointed as legal adviser to the Council of India.
• The Ilbert bill was passed on 25^th January 1884.
• The Ilbert bill came into force on 1^st May 1884.
• The result was the establishment of the Indian National Congress.

 Morley-Minto Reforms (1909)

• Morley-Minto Reforms is also known as Indian Council Act 1909.
• Lord Minto II was the Viceroy and Morley was the Secretary of State for India.
• It introduced a system of communal representation in India by accepting the concept of a separate electorate for Muslims.
• It provided for the first time, for the association of Indians with the executive councils of the Viceroy and Governors.
• Lord Minto II was the father of the Communal electorate in India.

Cripps Mission (1942)

• Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India with fresh proposals for constitutional reforms.
• Cripps Mission came to India on 22^nd March 1942.
• Lord Linlithgow was the Viceroy of India during the time of Cripps Mission.
• Cripps proposed that India would be given Dominion status immediately after the end of the war.
• India would be free to frame its own constitution after the war.
• Cripps Mission was a failure because the congress and the League rejected the proposals.
• Gandhiji called the Cripps Mission is 'A postdated cheque on a crashing bank'.

​Pitts India Act (1784)

• Pitts India Act was passed to rectify the defects of the Regulating Act (1773).
• The company's territories in India were for the first time called the British possessions in India.
• The British Government was given Supreme control over the company's affairs and its administration in India.