Maharaja Nandakumar

Nandakumar was appointed by the East India Company to be the Dewan (tax collector) for Burdwan, Nadia and Hooghly in 1764, following the removal of Warren Hastings from the post.

The Maharaja was tried under Elijah Impey, India's first Chief Justice, and friend of Warren Hastings, was found guilty, and hanged in Kolkata on 5 August 1775.

In 1772 his old enemy Warren Hastings returned to Bengal and reluctantly turned to Nandakumar for evidence to support the dismissal of the deputy nawab Muhammad Reza Khan.

In order to assist the councillors in removing Hastings, Nandakumar accused the governor-general of accepting presents worth about £40,000 from the nawabs, among other allegations.

The case was presided over by Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of Supreme Court in Calcutta, who was an old friend of Hastings since their school years.

Elijah Impey later justified his decision to refuse reprieve, stating that this would have undermined the authority of the court because the evidence of wrongdoing was so obvious.

According to Marshall, the independence of the judges in the case "seems in retrospect to be beyond question", but the execution of Nandakumar was clearly beneficial for Hastings since it stemmed the tide of accusations against him.