The Maniktala gardens under the jurisdiction of the Alipore suburb of Calcutta. On 5 May 1908, Aurobindo and others were produced in front of the chief presidency magistrate's court, where they were allowed access to lawyers for the first time. From here the case was transferred to the Alipore chief magistrate's court, and the accused were held at Alipore jail, with Aurobindo held in solitary confinement.
Initial hearings On 18 May, the accused were formally charged in the first hearing of
Emperor vs Aurobindo Ghosh and others. The charges included "organising to wage war against the government" and charging each individual accused with "waging war against the King". The prosecution was headed by
Eardley Norton, a leading barrister of the then presidency of
Madras. The hearing was assigned to the court of additional district magistrate, Leonard Birley,
ICS. Birley started hearing evidence from the 222 witnesses even before formal charges had been pressed. Nearly 2000 material and documentary exhibits formed the evidence. In total, ultimately 49 stood accused. They were held separately from other prisoners. In the middle of June, the accused were transferred to a three-roomed wing at Alipore Jail, from where they were later moved to Ward 23 of Alipore jail. The hearings against the accused had continued through May with intermittent recesses. However, despite a considerable body of evidence against most of the accused, very little evidence existed against Aurobindo himself. The structure of
Anushilan Samiti prevented the higher echelons of the organisation from becoming familiar to the junior ranks, and Aurobindo's involvement in the organisation and its activities were hard to pinpoint, except for a few letters and correspondences confiscated at Barin's Manicktolla garden house. These included letters Barin had written in 1907, initialled "A.G." proclaiming the time for distributing "sweets" across India, a euphemism for bombs of which the technology
Hem Chandra had learnt in Paris. On the other hand, much of the aim of the prosecution was to gain conviction against Aurobindo, who was seen as the most dangerous individual driving the
Samiti against the Raj.
Murder of Naren Goswami Unable to identify stronger material evidence, the prosecution began an effort to obtain witnesses who may be able to implicate Aurobindo. Their target became a young Anushilanite by the name of Naren Goswami. Goswami belonged to the family of a landowner in Bengal, of a wealthy background and social standing. He had been arrested at Maniktala with Barin and others on the initial raid. On 22 June, Prosecutor Norton announced to the court that Narendranath Goswami had turned "King's witness", or prosecution witness, in return for a pardon. By the middle of August, Birley had heard evidence against the accused. He twice rejected the defence's requests to cross-examine Goswami, using discretionary powers granted to him by the government of Bengal. On 19, 31 August, prisoners were committed to stand trial at Alipore Sessions Court for waging war against the King. On the evidence against Aurobindo, Birley concluded that letters and correspondences from members of the group --- particularly one letter from Barin where he had referred to "distributing sweets" across India --- indicated prima facie involvement on Aurobindo's part. Interned with his fellow conspirators, Barin Ghosh had carefully planned to stage a jail-break. Careful plans were made to overpower guards with acid, bombs and with arms smuggled into the jail with the help of
Samiti members and of family members. By the last week of August, Barin was able to obtain two revolvers, a
R.I.C. 0.45 calibre and an Osborne 0.38 calibre revolver. However, the accused soon realised that Goswami knew more than anticipated, and his evidence may implicate many accused including the Ghosh Brothers. A decision was taken by
Hemchandra Kanungo to silence Naren. On 29 August, Kanailal Dutt feigned abdominal colic and gained admission to the Jail hospital, from where he sent word to Naren of wishing to turn approver, along with
Satyendranath Bosu. Naren, believing the ruse, walked into the Hospital ward to meet the duo with the jail overseer. Armed with the two revolvers somehow smuggled in by Hem Chandra at Barin's request, Sen and Dutta chased Goswami down the jail corridors. The overseer accompanying Goswami, Warden Higgins, attempted to overpower Dutt but was shot through the wrist. Another overseer named Lynton tried to overpower Bose, but the latter broke free. Both Bose and Dutt shot Goswami multiple times, hitting his hip and piercing his spine, wounding him fatally. Bose and Dutta, firing nine shots in total into Goswami's lifeless body, gave themselves up once they realised Goswami was dead. Dutta later pleaded guilty, was convicted and hanged. Bose was initially declared not guilty by jury, but the verdict was returned to the high court, which returned a guilty verdict and awarded him the death sentence.
Alipore sessions court On 19 October 1908, the hearing for the trial began at the court of Charles Porten Beachroft who served as the additional sessions judge of the District 24 Paraganas. Beachcroft and Aurobindo had previously entered the Indian Civil Service Examinations in England in the same year, where Aurobindo had ranked ahead of Beachcroft. The defence team was composed of 15 lawyers, barristers and pleaders. Aurobindo was initially represented by Byomkesh Chakravarty, a leading Calcutta barrister. In addition to the 1500 documents and material evidence, defence team entered further 54 items. However, Chakravarty was successfully able to challenge Norton's attempts to enter Goswami's testimony as evidence, and able to obtain Beachcroft's ruling that Birley broke the law in refusing to allow defence to cross-examine Goswami. The trial continued for a year (1908-1909). In all, 206 witnesses were called, around 400 documents were filed with the court, and more than 5000 exhibits were produced including bombs, revolvers, and acids. However, Chakravarty soon pulled out of Ghosh's defence team, as the funds failed to meet his fees. On the desperate appeal of Ghosh's uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra, the defence was taken over by
Chittaranjan Das, then still a
junior barrister. Early in the trial, Barin and his fellow detainees from the Manicktolla ashram withdrew their confessions. Despite this, the scope lay to use their evidences against themselves. However, the prosecution's efforts to link Aurobindo to the group and to implicate him as the leader of the conspiracy began to unravel. With assassination of Naren Goswami, precious little remained to link Aurobindo to the works of Barin's group other than his published views in
Bande Mataram and
Jugantar. Das successfully argued that Aurobindo's thoughts and writings on independence were consistent with philosophical thoughts on liberty and freedom held by the English intelligentsia. On material evidences, Das alleged outright fabrication of documents by the police where these linked Aurobindo to the conspiracy. Significantly, as the hearings proceeded through 1908 into 1909, the government of Bengal came to fear that
Anushilan Samiti would mount a rescue mission to break out the undertrials. A noted rise in militant actions and assassinations linked to
Anushilan Samiti in wider Bengal began to be reported, reaching the premises of the Alipore court as the hearings drew to a close. In November 1908, two assassinations were attempted in Calcutta two days apart, one targeting Chief of Police Andrew Fraser and the second where Nandalal Bannerjee --- the police officer who had arrested Prafulla Chaki --- was gunned down, both in public. That same month, a police informant was killed and mutilated in Dacca. A shaken Bengal government arrested and deported a number of
Anushilan leaders, including
Raja Subodh Mallik, Aurobindo's uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra, and
Bande Mataram editor Shyamsunder Chakravarty to Rangoon. In response, in March 1909,
Anushilan assassinated public prosecutor Ashutosh Biswas when he was gunned down by
Charu Chandra Bose in the very steps of the Alipore High court where the hearings were beginning to draw to a close. The final arguments for prosecution and defence began amidst tight security at the end of March 1909. Das, closing his argument for defense, famously stated:
The verdict File:Barindra Kumar Ghosh 01.jpg|
Barindra Kumar Ghosh, sentenced to death, later converted to transportation to Cellular Jail, Andamans Beachcroft delivered his verdicts on 6 May 1909, The verdict was disappointing to the Government of India, who had hoped to obtain a conviction against Aurobindo. Further fears were raised that those acquitted may have already received instructions from Hem on constructing the bombs. Aurobindo further was seen as the most dangerous adversary to the Raj whilst he remained free. Consulted on the prospects of a successful appeal against the verdict on Aurobindo, the advocate general of Bombay the chance of obtaining a conviction "fair", but was unable to provide more reassuring prospects. In August 1909, the government took the decision not to launch an appeal. Of the two sentenced to death by hanging (but released in 1920), Ullaskar Dutt, a young man of 22, described his occupation as a cow keeper. ==Popular perception==