Question

Difference between imperial and provincial legislative council

Answer 1

The Imperial Council was also called the Viceroy of India Council created by the enactment of Indian Councils Act of 1861, passed in aftermath of the suppression of the firsts Indian Freedom Struggle, also called as the ‘Sepoy Mutiny/Rebellion’ in 1858; The control of the Indian territory under the East of India was transferred to the British Crown; It established the ‘British Raj’ in India;

The Imperial Council consisted of six "ordinary members", who each took charge of a separate department in Calcutta’s government: home, revenue, military, law, finance, and (after 1874) public works.

The military Commander-in-Chief sat in with the council as an extraordinary member.

The Executive Council was enlarged by addition of fifth member as Jurist.

The Viceroy was allowed, under the provisions of the Act, to overrule the council on affairs if he deemed it necessary;

Please note that, at that time Bengal was one of the Presidencies, along with Madras, Bombay and North Western Province; these presidencies had their own capital towns — Bengal at Calcutta, Madras at Madras, Bombay at Bombay (shifted from Surat) and North-Western Province at Surat;

In due course, the various parts of the country were annexed, surrendered to or taken over by the British and were attached to the respective Presidencies, and the British found that the territories were becoming unwieldy and hence re-defined these presidencies by creating provinces;

The created different type of provinces, viz;, Regulation Provinces & Non-Regulation Provinces; and later segregated into Major Provinces and Minor Provinces; At the time of Independence of India in 1947 there were 17 provinces;

Talking about Provincial Councils, we have to go back to the Indian Councils Act of 1861, which allowed creation of new provinces by the Governor General, who had full powers to define and re-define any part of a presidency into these provinces;..