The Right Hon'ble Sir John Edge
Sri Arvind Kumar 
Advocate, High Court, Allahabad
Of the English Judges, who came to the Allahabad High Court, Sir John Edge is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished. Both as a Chief Justice of the N.-W.P. High Court and a member of the Privy Council, his name is associated with a number of celebrated judgements.
Sir John Edge was born in the year 1841. Precocious as he was from his early childhood, studies were his only passion in life. In his law examination he secured a certificate of merit from the Council of Law Society, United Kingdom in the Easter term of the year 1858. After practising for a few years as a Barrister, he got the "Silk", and, as a Queen's Counsel, he gave an excellent account of himself.
Apart from this legal career, Sir John Edge had keen interest in educational and political spheres, which is amply vouched by his phenomenal success as Vice-Chancellor of the Allahabad University.
Sir John Edge earned a name as the Chief Justice of the High Court of the North-Western Provinces from 1886 to 1898. His contemporaries Were Mr. Justice Mahmood, Mr. Justice Tyrell, Mr. Justice Straight, Mr. Justice Knox, Mr. Justice Brodhurst. For the first time, in the history of the High Court, it was ruled by Sir John that, under sections 588 and 591 of the (.old) Civil Procedure Code, no appeal lay, under clause 10 of the Letters Patent of the N.W.P. High Court, from an order of a single Judge refusing an application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis.1 On the law of limitation, his various judgments are masterpieces. In Parbati vs. Bhola2 he laid down that in computing the period of limitation prescribed for an appeal or for an application for leave to appeal as a pauper, where the decree appealed against is not signed until a date subsequent to the date of delivery of judgment, the intermediate period should, under section 12 of the Limitation Act, be excluded, if the delay in signing the decree has delayed the appellant or applicant in obtaining a copy of the decree, but not otherwise.
Sir John continued as Chief Justice up to 1898. Behind his serious and judicious smile, he had always sympathy and soft corner for the junior section of the Bar. He invariably helped and encouraged the juniors. He had all the attributes of a great Judge, and was always open to conviction. To his colleagues on the Bench, he was indeed respectful and affectionate. If there was difference of opinion, Sir John Edge would readily submit to the majority opinion. A very important judgment of April 2, 1889, delivered by the Full Bench, consisting of Chief Justice Sir John Edge, Mr. Justice Straight, Mr. Justice Brodhurst, Mr. Justice Tyrell and Mr. Justice Mahmood, needs a special mention, in which most of the Judges differed in their opinions. This judgment3 was on the point of admissibility, in evidence, of judgments not inter partes in criminal cases. In this case, for the first time, the Latin adage - aut caesar aut nullus' i.e. either the judgments sought to be produced in evidence should be conclusive inter partes or they should not be admitted in evidence at all (unless they relate to a public custom or right or the factum of judgment be a matter in issue), was judicially considered; and most of the Judges differed in their views. It is said that this was the only judgment which was reserved for long, which led to the rumour in the Bar that there was considerable difference of opinion between Sir John and Mr. Justice Mahmood. Such differences also occurred between the two Judges in several cases of Mohammedan and Hindu Law.
In Ram Kuar vs. Sardar Singh,4 decided on March 28, 1898, His Lordship ruled that a certificate may be granted under the Succession Certificate Act, VII of 1889, to a minor through his next friend. This was his last judgment before he resigned from Chief Justiceship.
On April 2, 1898, it appeared in the Law Times that Sir John Edge, Q.C., had been appointed a Member of the Council of India, in succession to Sir Charles Turner, K.C.I.E., whose tenure had, expired in preceding February. By that time Sir John Edge was already known as great scholar of law.
In 1904, a Committee consisting of Sir Richard Henn Collins, Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B. and Sir John Edge, K.C. was appointed by the Home Secretary to enquire into and report to him upon the circumstances of the convictions of Mr. Adolf Beck in 1896 and 1904. The Master of the Rolls was appointed Chairman of the Committee. Sir John's work in this Committee earned him great popularity. The Beck case was the most sensational case in 1896 arid 1904, in the United Kingdom. In this report the Committee considered the conclusion of the Courts to be erroneous. The Committee's report was published on December 3, 1904.
Another recommendation of this Committee was to empower the Attorney-General in proper cases to move the High Court of Justice to vacate a conviction of an accused subsequently discovered to be innocent. Although the report of Sir John Edge caused great sensation in the politics of the country, so much so that he was obliged to give a statement in public in vindication of it, nevertheless he earned the gratitude of his countrymen for his contribution to the growth of the English law.
Now, we come to the stage of his greatest achievement, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In July, 1908, he, along with Charles Milkes Gaskell, was sworn a member of the Privy Council, and, in July, 1911, was appointed to its Judicial Committee. In 1926 he relinquished his office.
Sitting in the Judicial Committee he delivered very luminous judgments. His experience as Chief Justice of one of the premier High Courts in India undoubtedly stood him in good stead in laying down the law for this country. 
One of the important cases in the Privy Council to which Sir John was a party is on the interpretation of section 96 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is the case of Loftus Otway Clerke vs. Brojendra Kishore Roy Chowdhary of the year 1912. The Judicial Committee in its opinion to His Majesty remarked that the Code of Criminal Procedure uses the term "Court" and "Magistrate" generally if not always as convertible terms and that the Code contemplates the issue of a search warrant by a Magistrate under section 96 before any proceedings are initiated and in view of an "inquiry about to be made" by him under the Code.
Mrs. Annie Besant vs. The Advocate General of Madras5 is another case of importance to the decision of which Sir John Edge was a party. The Judicial Committee in this case held that the power of the High Courts which inherited the ordinary or extraordinary jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts to issue writs of certiorari had not been taken away by the provisions of section 435 of the Criminal Procedure Code and section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure but that the power to issue a writ of certiorari against any order of the Magistrate passed under the Indian Press Act, 1910, would be taken away by section 22 of the said Act. It was further laid down that section 4 of the Press Act was analogous to sections 124 and 153 A of the Indian Penal Code, as both attempted to balance two important public considerations, namely the undesirability of anything tending to excite sedition or to excite strife between classes and the undesirability of preventing any bona fide arguments for reform.
Delivering the judgment of the Judicial Committee on July 9, 1920, in Sheokuarbai vs. Jeoraj,6 Sir John ruled that the Jains are of Hindu origin, that they are Hindu dissenters, but they have so generally adopted the Hindu law that the Hindu rules of adoption are applied to them in the absence of some usage to the contrary.
Sir John Edge was a party to the judgment in Privy Council Appeal no. 28 of 1925,7 This is the last reported case of the Privy Council in the hearing of which Sir John participated as a member of the Privy Council Bench. The principle of law laid down in this case is that even great-grandson of a Hindu governed by the Mitakshara school of law, by birth acquires interest in joint family property; and sons, grandsons and great-grandsons are all liable for the debts of their ancestors to the extent of the assets inherited by them.
For the paucity of space, only a few of his judgments have been mentioned; there are many more which adorn the pages of Law Reports. His colleagues in the Judicial Committee always considered him a safe guide in the controversies involving personal law of the Indians.
Few have been the recipient of so warm tributes from their equals and colleagues as Sir John Edge. In his talk, which Rt. Hon'ble Ameer Ali gave in the Royal Society in 1925, he paid high tributes to the merit of Sir John Edge as a Judge. "His imprints of social upliftment were very often found in his judgments", said Lord Blavesburgh of Sir John Edge in his address in the Law Society. Even after his departure from India he was one of the most remembered persons. He was a man with wide sympathies and was free from colour complex. He was intellectually honest and had every reverence for the dissenting view of his colleagues. He lived a simple life and always delighted in sharing the comradeship of the common man.
A noble man and a great judge that he was, his death was widely mourned in India and England alike. We can justly be proud of him such as he was of his association with our court.

  	Banno Bibi vs. Mehdi Hussain, (1889) 6 Ind. Dec. 375 (All)