Sir, the object of this amendments is that unless a lawyer has practised in the same province in which he is going to be appointed as a Judge, it will be very difficult for him to appreciate the customs, manners and the practices of the country. We have in our country strange results from the appointment of I.C.S. officers in the beginning of British administration. So also in cases when officers from outside the province were brought in. I am not limiting thereby the enrolment of advocates from any province. They may come and practise. Only I am saying that he should have resided in the province for a period of seven years. The results from the appointment of persons from outside the province were like this. In our part of the country, there is a custom for the New Year day for young men to go and dance and sing and go on amaying and sky-larking for some time, and then stage manage on the bank of a river or a stream that she has been kidnapped or taken by force. The parents brought criminal complaints that their girls had been kidnapped and the persons were sentenced very heavily by the Judges who did not know the elementary condition of life there. Sometime later, the Government had to issue circulars that in such cases, the matter should be allowed to be compromised. Probably, in other provinces also, this would be taken as a very serious offence and the persons would be given four to seven years rigorous imprisonment. In our country for such cases a preliminary enquiry has to be made and a chance has to be given for compromise. In 99 per cent of the cases, compromises were effected after giving some solatium to the parents. In the same way, as regards marriages, we have a very simple custom of tying the nuptial knot and blessings by the people present in the village completes a marriage. The People who come from Bengal and other provinces or Europeans, who have read the Hindu Law and other things, put into force the strict laws of those countries and the result was the nullification of marriages. This may happen in Orissa or Bihar. People may not know the customs in Ranchi and other places and they may commit mistakes. I have not prevented any man from coming from any other province and practising in the High Court of the province. The only thing I insist is that they should live there for seven years so that they may be acquainted with the customs in the country, to become eligible for appointment as district judges.
