An illustration published in The Graphic on 25 January 1884 depicting a meeting in the Bombay Town Hall in support of the bill
The Ilbert Bill was a bill introduced to the Imperial Legislative Council (ILC) of British India on 9 February 1883 which stipulated that non-white judges could oversee cases that had white plaintiffs or defendants. It was drafted by and named after British civil servant Sir Courtenay Ilbert, then serving as the legal advisor to Council of India, which was head by Governor-General of India Lord Ripon.
Ilbert had originally proposed the bill as part of a revision of the Criminal Procedure Code, which forbade non-white magistrates in British India from trying cases involving white people. The bill, introduced to the ILC by Lord Ripon, was intended to reduce restrictions placed on Indian civil servants by previous British administrations in India. Indian judges who had reached a senior rank within the Imperial Civil Service could try cases involving white plaintiffs or defendants. Lord Ripon's support for the bill was influenced by British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who instructed him to eliminate some of the more restrictive British legislation aimed at Indian judges.[1][2][3]
After it was introduced, the bill sparked a massive controversy, with Anglo-Indian people largely denouncing it and Indian nationalists supporting the bill; the legislation also led to a divided reaction in the United Kingdom. The bill was ultimately enacted in 1884, but in a severely compromised state. Among Indian nationalists, British opposition to the bill led to increased support for the independence movement, with the Indian National Congress being established one year later.[4]
^Roy, Somnath (1970). "Repercussions of the Ilbert Bill". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 32: 94–101. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44138511.
^The Ilbert bill : a collection of letters, speeches, memorials, articles, &c., stating the objections to the bill. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. London : W.H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place, S.W. 1883.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^Dussart, Fae (8 April 2013). ""To Glut a Menial's Grudge": Domestic servants and the Ilbert Bill controversy of 1883". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 14 (1). doi:10.1353/cch.2013.0000. ISSN 1532-5768. S2CID 144814536.
^A Concise History of India, p. 120, at Google Books
The IlbertBill was a bill introduced to the Imperial Legislative Council (ILC) of British India on 9 February 1883 which stipulated that non-white judges...
prompted by Introduction of the Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill (1883-1884) or IlbertBill. Anandamohan Bose depicted this conference as the first stage...
Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, GCB, KCSI, CIE, FBA (12 June 1841 – 14 May 1924) was a distinguished British lawyer and civil servant who served as legal...
self-government and sought to remove racial practices in the law courts by the IlbertBill. But a policy at once liberal and progressive at one turn was reactionary...
1878). It was, however, Viceroy Lord Ripon's partial reversal of the IlbertBill (1883), a legislative measure that had proposed putting Indian judges...
he opposed the imperial laws like the Immigration Bill, the Vernacular Press Act and the IlbertBill through the columns of the Hindoo Patriot. He protested...
frantically jealous and physically violent disposition. In 1883, the IlbertBill, which would have granted judges of Indian descent in Bengal the right...
This point was later raised during the controversy surrounding the 1883 IlbertBill, a proposed legislation which would allow Indian judges to judge European...
March 1884 9 February – Viceroy Lord Ripon's partial reversal of the IlbertBill (1883), a legislative measure that had proposed putting Indian judges...
political issues of his day such as the IlbertBill and the blatant racism of those who opposed the implementation of the Bill in India. Ram Chandra Bose died...
Association and campaigned against Lord Ripon's IlbertBill at the club. Another member campaigning against the Bill was R.C. Macgregor, who Ripon attacked as...
still difficult.[clarification needed] In the 1883 IlbertBill controversy, a British India bill that proposed Indian judicial jurisdiction to try British...
later taken up by Sir Courtney Ilbert, the Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, who in his famous IlbertBill report passed in 1883 recommended...
daughter of Babu Ambika Charan Ghosh at a time when protests against the IlbertBill and the arrest of Surendra Nath Banerji had rocked the city. He also...
Retrieved 15 March 2018. Mrinalini Sinha, "Reconfiguring Hiararchies: The IlbertBill Controversy, 1883-84", in Reina Lewis and Sarah Mills, Feminist Post-Colonialist...
responsible duties. On this point, in connection with what is known as the IlbertBill, he advocated measures even more liberal than those proposed by Lord...
of all officials, British and Indian, in the ICS at the time of the IlbertBill controversy in 1883. Beames was a die-hard conservative who allowed his...
by the Anglo-Indian community in protest at the recently introduced IlbertBill, it rained (unusual at that time of year) and the illuminations failed...
policies remained in effect until Indian independence in 1947. The 1883 IlbertBill, which would have granted Indian judges the right to judge British offenders...
Councils Act 1861 Indian Councils Act 1892 Government of India Act 1919 Ilbert 1911, p. 243. "Indian National Congress". Indian National Congress. Retrieved...
Steinthal, E. Ernest. Introduction and a Supplementary Chapter by Courtenay Ilbert. London: Archibald Constable. pp. 164–185. Lyons, F.S.L. (2005). Charles...
(disambiguation) India Office Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms Secretary of State for India Ilbert, Sir Courtenay Peregrine. The Government of India. Clarendon Press, 1922...
the Bengal Tenancy Act and the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Bill (the IlbertBill), both of which Garth publicly opposed. In May 1883, Garth sentenced...
Şerban Ghenea, Daniel Green, John Hanes, Jon Hopkins, Michael Ilbert, Max Martin, Bill Rahko, Bart Schoudel, Rik Simpson and Paris Strother, engineers/mixers;...
today as the draftsman of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, and in 1888 of the Sale of Goods Act 1893. The original Bill was settled by Lord Herschell who...
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