19 NLR 321

• Jurisdiction: Sri Lanka
• Court: Court of Appeal (Sri Lanka)
• Citation: 19 NLR 321
• Date: 06 February 1917
• Case Number: NLR19V321
• Type of Document: Case report

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1917 Present : Wood Renton C.J. and Shaw J.

PEDRIS v. THE MANUFACTURERS LIFE INSURANCE CO., LTD.

447-D. C, Colombo, 44,358.

Life insurance-Action for recovery of amount due on a policy-Conviction of person insured for treason by field General Court-Martial- Execution of person insured-Ceylon Indemnity Order in Council-May plaintiff prove that the person insured was not guilty of treason ?-Record of conviction prima facie proof of guilt.

The administrator of the estate of one Pedris brought this action to recover from the defendant company money due upon policy of life insurance. The undertaking to pay in the event of death was a general one, and not limited to death in any particular manner. Pedris was convicted by a Field General Court-Martial of treason and shot. The Ceylon Indemnity Order in Council (section 4) provided as follows:-" The several sentences and orders pronounced by Military Courts during the continuance of martial law are hereby confirmed, and all persons tried by such Courts and confined in any prisons shall continue liable to be confined there until the expiration of the sentences and such sentences shall be deemed to be sentences passed by duly and legally constituted Courts ."

Held, (1) that section 4 of the Order in Council, prevented any question being raised for any purpose as to the jurisdiction of the Court by which the sentence was pronounced either over the charges on which the trial proceeded or over the person tried; (2) that the effect of the Order in Council did not amount to a declaration by statute that Pedris was guilty of treason; (3) that the mere fact that Pedris died at the hands of justice did not prevent his administrator from recovering on the * policy; (4) that it was open to the plaintiff to lead evidence to prove that Pedris was not in fact guilty of treason; (5) that the record of the conviction of Pedris was prima facie evidence of his guilt.

THE facts are fully set out in the judgment.

Bawa, K. C. (with him E. W. Jayewardene, L. H. de Alwis, and Skelton de Saram), for the appellant.

Drieberg (with him Samarawickreme), for the respondents.

Cur. adv. Vult.

February 6, 1917. WOOD RENTON C.J.-

This case, which was argued before us with very high ability on both sides, and in which we have had the advantage of a most careful and exhaustive judgment by Mr. Wadsworth, then Acting Additional District Judge of Colombo, raises questions of great public interest

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and importance. The plaintiff, as administrator of the estate of Diyunuge Edward Henry Pedris, sues the defendants, the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 25,000 on a policy of insurance effected by Pedris with them of his own life on April 30, 1907. The amount of the insurance was Insurance payable to Pedris on April 1, 1927, if he should then be alive, or to Co., Ltd. his executors, administrators, or assigns in the event of his death before that date. Pedris was, in the beginning of July, 1915, tried in Colombo by a Field General Court-Martial upon charges of (i) treason by levying war against the King contrary to section 41 of the Army Act, 1881,[44 and 46 Vict., c. 58.] (ii) shop breaking, (iii) attempting to murder, (iv) wounding with intent to murder, and (v) wounding with Intent to do grievous bodily harm. These offences were alleged to have been committed on the 1st of the preceding June, in connection with the riots which had then broken out in the Colony. Pedris was found guilty on charges (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv), and not guilty on the fifth charge. He was sentenced to death. The sentence was confirmed by Brigadier-General Malcolm, who was then the General Officer Commanding the Troops in Ceylon, and, in pursuance of it, Pedris was shot in jail on the morning of 7th July, 1915. The question involved in the present appeal is whether the execution of Pedris is an answer to an action by his administrator on his insurance policy, which does not, it should be observed, contain any condition forfeiting the policy money, if the assured should die at the hands of justice. The learned District Judge has decided this issue in favour of the defendants, and has dismissed the action with costs. The administrator appeals.

The argument ranged over a great variety of topics. We were invited to consider numerous questions as to the jurisdiction of the Field General Court-Martial by which Pedris was tried, arising under the Army Act, 1881,1[44 and 46 Vict., c. 58.] and the provision in section III, c. 1 of an Order in Council dated October 26, 1896, applied in this Colony by a Proclamation by the Governor of 5th August, 1914, that-

" every person who shall for the time being be within the limits of the Colony shall be subject to military law for the purposes of the Army Act, and the said Act shall, subject to the provisions of this Order, be deemed to apply to such person in the same manner as if such person had been a person accompanying His Majesty's troops, or some portion thereof, when employed in active service beyond the seas, and such person shall, for the purposes of the said Act, be deemed to be under the command of the Officer Commanding His Majesty's Troops.

It is, however, in my opinion, unnecessary for us to deal with this part of the case at all. On 12th August, "1915, the Imperial Ceylon Indemnity Order in Council, 1915, was introduced by

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Proclamation into the Colony. Section 4 of that enactment is in these terms:-

" The several sentences and orders pronounced by Military Courts held in the Colony during the continuance of martial law are hereby confirmed, and all persons tried by such Courts and confined in any prisons or other legal places of confinement in the Colony under or by virtue of such sentences shall continue liable to be confined there or elsewhere as the Governor may direct, until the expiration of the sentences respectively passed upon them or until their discharge by lawful authority; and such sentences-shall be deemed to be sentences passed by duly and legally constituted Courts of the Colony, and shall be carried out or otherwise-dealt with in the same manner as the sentences of duly constituted Courts of Law of the Colony."

I think that the effect of this provision, which is applicable to the case, inasmuch as Pedris was tried and sentenced during the continuance of martial law, is to prevent any question being raised for any purpose now as to the jurisdiction of the Court by which the sentence was pronounced either over the charges on which the trial proceeded or over the person tried. The section provides in effect that the sentence passed on Pedris is to be deemed to have been imposed by a "duly and legally constituted Court." The context, in my opinion, demonstrates that the word " deemed "in this connection means " shall be conclusively taken to be." We were urged by counsel for the administrator to hold that, even if this were so, the language of section 4 of the Order in Council itself shows that the jurisdiction of the Military Courts, whose sentences are confirmed, was validated only for the purpose of enabling the sentences to be carried into effect. The words of the section, it was contended are " deemed to be, " not " deemed to have been. " This argument brings me to the incidental consideration of a point with which it will be necessary to deal later on. It is obvious that section 4 of the Order in Council cannot be construed in the restricted sense just mentioned, if it applies to sentences that have already been executed. I have no doubt but that it does. The confirmation in the first clause of the " several sentences " passed' by Military Courts during the continuance of martial law makes this quite clear. The sentence imposed by the Field General Court-Martial upon Pedris is placed by the Order in Council on the same basis as if it had been a sentence of the Supreme Court on an indictment against him for levying war against the King within the meaning of section 114 of the Penal Code.

There remains, however, the not less important and more difficult question whether in spite of his conviction of, and execution for, treason, it is still competent for his administrator to prove in the present action that he did not, in fact, commit the offence of treason. This question has to be considered from the point of view, in the

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first place, of section 4 of the Ceylon Indemnity Order in Council.

1915, and in the next place of the general law apart from that enactment. Do the words "the several sentences and orders The Pronounced by Military Courts in the Colony during the continuance of martial law are hereby confirmed " legalize not only the sentences themselves, but the findings on which those sentences are based? As I have already indicated, I think that the language just quoted confirms sentences that have been carried out as well as those that are still current, and if it were permissible to speculate as to the intention of the framers of the Order in Council, there would be much to be said for the view that they meant to draw a politic o veil of oblivion over the entire episode, with which the Order in Council is concerned, for all purposes. But we have to deal here with an enactment which not merely is retrospective in character, but was brought into operation after the right sought to be asserted in this action had accrued. It is clear, both on authority and on . principle, that before the language of section 4 is construed so as to debar the legal representative of Pedris from enforcing a right already vested, we must be satisfied that the words actually used in the section are sufficient for the purpose. The points in favour of the defendants in this connection are these. The section, in my opinion does deal with sentences that have been completely undergone, and applies, therefore, to the case of Pedris. There was no...