In so far as the source of this sovereignty was concerned, Hastings claimed that the Company had inherited the sovereignty over Bengal through a grant of the Diwani (the right to collect revenue) from the Mughal emperor. Rejecting the legitimacy of the English Parliament’s repeated attempts to bring the Company’s administration in India under its control, as reflected in the Regulating Act of 1773 and the two Parliamentary bills of 1783 and 1784, Hastings asserted that since this sovereignty had nothing to do with the English Parliament, it was beyond its jurisdiction and had to be exercised in accordance with Mughal laws, customs, and conventions regarding sovereignty, not with those of English (Mukherjee 603-604).
Mukherjee, Mithi. “Justice, War, and the Imperium: India and Britain in Edmund Burke’s Prosecutorial Speeches in the Impeachment Trial of Warren Hastings.“ Law and History Review, vol. 23, no. 3, 2005, pp. 589-630.