The Government of India Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 85), sometimes called the East India Company Act 1833 or the Charter Act 1833, is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, later retitled as the Saint Helena Act 1833. It extended the royal charter granted to the East India Company for an additional twenty years, and restructured the governance of British India.
It is also known as the Saint Helena Act of 1833 due to the reason that it took away the Island of Saint Helena in South West Atlantic from the English East India Company.
| Royal assent | 28 August 1833 |
|---|---|
| Commencement | 22 April 1834 |
The act is regarded as a watershed moment in the constitutional history of British India:
- It completely ended the East India Company‘s commercial activities, including its remaining monopoly over the tea trade and trade with China, transforming the Company into a purely administrative body acting as a trustee of the British Crown.
- The Governor-General of Bengal was redesignated as the Governor-General of India, with Lord William Bentinck becoming the first to hold the title, unifying administration across all of British India under a single authority.
- Legislative power was centralised entirely in the Governor-General in Council, stripping the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras of their independent legislative powers and creating a uniform legislative framework for all of British India.
- The act introduced the first Law Commission of India in 1834, with Lord Macaulay as its chairman, tasked with codifying and systematising Indian laws — a process that eventually produced the Indian Penal Code of 1860.
- It categorically stated that no native of India should be denied any place, office or employment under the Company on grounds of religion, place of birth, descent, or colour — a foundational principle of equality in Indian administrative history.
- The act attempted to introduce open competition for the selection of civil servants, laying an early conceptual groundwork for what would later become the Indian Civil Service.
- It provided for the abolition of slavery in India, directing the Governor-General in Council to take measures to mitigate and eventually end slavery — which was formally abolished in 1843.
- Control of the island of Saint Helena was transferred from the Company to the Crown, reflecting the broader shift of sovereign authority from the Company to the British government.