Report No. 16

Report on the Official Trustees Act, 1913

Part I

General

1. Historical background.-

The office of Official Trustee was constituted in India during the days of the East India Company by Act 17 of 1843. As the preamble to that Act indicates clearly, the office was created to save "the property of infants, feme coverts and others vested in trustees, from the peculiar risks to which they were exposed not only from the insolvency of the trustees, but from the frequent difficulties occasioned by their death, or absence or incapacity to act". The history of the legislation relating to the office till the passing of the present Official Trustees Act in 1913 has been traced succinctly by Kinney1 in his introduction to the Official Trustees Act, and it is needless to repeat it here.

l. Kinney: Law relating to Administrators-General and Official Trustees, pp. 95-99.