1. I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts. I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby – not even money, certainly not my soul.
An Autobiography, (1959), p. 97
2. It was not impossible to practise law without compromising truth. Even truthfulness in the practice of the profession cannot cure it of the fundamental defect that vitiates it.
An Autobiography, (1959), p. 269
3. Throughout my career at the bar I never once departed from the strictest truth and honesty. The first thing which you must always bear in mind, if you would spiritualize the practice of law, is not to make your profession subservient to the interests of your purse, as is unfortunately but too often the case at present, but to use your profession for the service of your country. . . . The fees charged by lawyers are unconscionable everywhere. I confess, I myself have charged what I would now call high fees. But even whilst I was engaged in my practice, let me tell you I never let my profession stand in the way of my public service. . . . And there is another thing I would like to warn you against. In England, in South Africa, almost everywhere I have found that in the practice of their profession Lawyers are consciously or unconsciously ‘led into untruth for the sake of their clients. An eminent English Lawyer has gone so far as to say that it may even be the duty of a lawyer to defend a client whom he knows to be guilty. There I disagree. The duty of a lawyer is always to place before the judges, and to help them to arrive at, the truth, never to prove the guilty as innocent.
Young India, 22-12-1927, pp. 427-28
4. A true lawyer is one who places truth and service in the first place and the emoluments of the profession in the next place only.
Harijan, 26-11-1938, p. 351
5. Facts mean truth, and once we adhere to truth, the law comes to our aid naturally.
An Autobiography, (1959), p. 96
6. I recalled the late Mr. Pincutt’s advice – facts are three-fourths of the law.
An Autobiography, (1959), p. 95
7. Lawyers and English-educated persons do not by any means enjoy a monopoly of hair-splitting.
Satyagraha in South Africa, Madras, Ganesan, p. 202
8. Lawyers are also men, and there is something good in every man. Whenever instances of lawyers having done good can be brought forward, it will be found that the good is due to them as men rather than as lawyers.
Indian Home Rule, 1958, p. 55
9. Lawyers will, as a rule, advance quarrels instead of repressing them. Moreover, men take up that profession, not in order to help others out of their miseries, but to enrich themselves. It is one of the avenues of becoming wealthy and their interest exists in multiplying disputes. It is within my knowledge that they are glad when men have disputes.
Indian Home Rule, 1958, p. 55
10. I have not a shadow of a doubt that society would be much cleaner and healthier if there was less resort to law courts than there is.
Young India, 3-12-1919
11. An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Non-violence in Peace and War, Vol. 2, p. 150
12. The economic drain that the law courts cause has at no time been considered. And yet it is not a trifle. Every institution founded under the present system is run on a most extravagant scale. Law courts are probably the most extravagantly run. I have some knowledge of the scale in England, a fair knowledge of the Indian and an intimate knowledge of the South African. I have no hesitation in saying that the Indian is comparatively the most extravagant and bears no relation to the general economic condition of the people.
The best South African lawyers – and they are lawyers of great ability – dare not charge the fees the lawyers in India do. Fifteen guineas is almost a top fee for legal opinion. Several thousand rupees have been known to have been charged in India. There is something sinful in a system under which it is possible for a lawyer to earn from fifty thousand to one lakh rupees per month. Legal practice is not – ought not to be — a speculative business. The best legal talent must be available to the poorest at reasonable rates.
Young India, 6-10-1920, pp. 2-3
[Ideas derived by Gandhiji from Ruskin’s Unto This Last in the year 1904:]
13. The teachings of Unto This Last I understood to be:
a) That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.
b) That a lawyer’s work has the same value as the barber’s, inasmuch as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.
c) That a life of labour, i.e. the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.
The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it as clear as daylight for me that the second and the third were contained in the first.
An Autobiography, (1959) p. 221
14. If all labored for their bread and no more, then there would be enough food and enough leisure for all.
Then there would be no cry of over-population, no disease and no such misery as we see around. Such labour will be the highest form of sacrifice. Men will no doubt do many other things either through their bodies or through their minds, but all this will be labour of love for the common good. . . . May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour? No. The needs of the body must be supplied by the body. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, perhaps, applies here as well. Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction. It should never demand payment. In the ideal State, doctors, lawyers and the like will work solely for the benefit of society, not for self.
Harijian, 29-6-1935, p. 165
15. A medical practitioner from Kenya asks whether medical practitioners can engage in money-lending business or speculation. I have long held the opinion that professional men, whether medical or legal or other, should not seek to add to their income by speculation or other pursuits. It tends to make them careless in their special work. There have been cases in which doctors and lawyers have ruined their reputation by going outside their profession to make money.
Harijian, 16-12-1939, p. 379
16. Justice in British courts is an expensive luxury. It is often ‘the longest purse that wins’.
17. It is much to be wished that people would avoid litigation. ‘Agree with thine adversary quickly’ is the soundest legal maxim ever uttered. The author knew what he was saying. But it will be asked, what when we are dragged, as we often are, to the courts?
I would say ‘do not defend’. If you are in the wrong, you will deserve the sentence whatever it may be. If you are wrongly brought to the court and yet penalized, let your innocence soothe you in your unmerited suffering. Undefended, you will in every case suffer the least and what is more you will have the satisfaction of sharing the fate of the majority of your fellow-beings who cannot get themselves defended.
Young India, 23-7-1919
18. Put your talents in the service of the country instead of converting them into £ s.d. If you are a medical man, there is disease enough in India to need all your medical skill. If you are a lawyer, there are differences and quarrels enough in India. Instead of fomenting more trouble, patch up those quarrels and stop litigation. If you are an engineer, build model houses suited to the means and needs of our people and yet full of health and fresh air. There is nothing that you have learnt which cannot be turned to account.
Young India, 25-11-1931, p. 334
[Several Mysore lawyers who had taken part in the Mysore Satyagraha struggle had been disbarred by the Mysore Chief Court. Gandhiji wrote about them :]
19. Let these lawyers be proud of their poverty which will be probably their lot now. Let them remember Thoreau’s saying that possession of riches is a crime and poverty a virtue under an unjust administration. This is an eternal maxim for Satyagrahis. The disbarred lawyers have a rare opportunity of so re-modeling their lives that they can always be above want. Let them remember that practice of law ought not to mean taking more daily than, say, a village carpenter’s wage.
Harijian, 13-7-1940, p. 205
20. If India is to live an exemplary life of independence which will be the envy of the world, all the bhangis (sweepers), doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants and others would get the same wages for an honest day’s work. Indian society may never reach the goal, but it is the duty of every Indian to set his sail towards that goal and no other, if India is to be a happy land.
Harijian, 16-3-1947, p. 67
21. A wise man deliberately forgets many things, even as a lawyer forgets the cases and their details as soon as they are disposed of.
Letter to Mirabehn, 25-1-1931 in Bapu’s Letters to Mira, p. 150
22. Only he who has mastered the art of obedience to law knows the art of disobedience to law.
Young India, 5-11-1919
23. Once a law is enacted, many difficulties must be encountered before it can be reversed. It is only when public opinion is highly educated that the laws in force in a country can be repealed. A Constitution under which laws are modified or repealed every now and then cannot be said to be stable or well organized.
Satyagraha in South Africa, Ch. 10. p., 140
[Editor’s Note: In 1927, an American authoress, Miss Catherine Mayo, published under the title Mother India a book which was scurrilous and grossly defamatory of India and her people. Reviewing the said book in Young India Gandhiji called it a ‘Drain Inspector’s Report’. In the course of his articles Gandhiji observed:]
24. She (Miss Mayo) has done me the honour of quoting me frequently in support of her argument. . . . But in her hurry to see everything Indian in bad light, she has not only taken liberty with my writings, but she has not thought it necessary even to verify through me certain things ascribed by her or others to me. In fact she has combined in her own person what we understand in India the judicial and the executive officer. She is both the prosecutor and the judge…. Having no case, she has followed the method of the pettifogging lawyer who vainly tries to discredit a hostile but unshakable witness by making him state things from memory which might be found on verification to be not quite accurate.
Young India, 15-9-1927, p. 308 and 2-2-1928, p. 34
25. If everybody lives by the sweat of his brow, the earth will become a paradise. The question of the use of special talents hardly needs separate consideration. If everyone labours physically for his bread it follows that poets, doctors, lawyers, etc. will regard it their duty to use those talents gratis for the service of humanity. Their output will be all the better and richer for their selfless devotion to duty.
Harijian, 2-3-1947, p. 47
26. I believe in the division of labour or work. But I do insist on equality of wages. The lawyer, the doctor or the teacher is entitled to no more than the bhangi. Then only will the division of work uplift the nation or the earth. There is no other royal road to true civilization or happiness.
Harijian, 23-3-1947, p. 78
27. May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour? No. The needs of the body must be supplied by the body. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s perhaps applies here as well. Mere mental, that is intellectual, labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction. It should never demand payment. In the ideal state, doctors, lawyers and the like will work solely for the benefit of society not for self.
Harijian, 29-6-1935, p. 156
28. If we were not under the spell of lawyers and law courts and if there were no touts to tempt us into the quagmire of the courts and to appeal to our basest passions we would be leading a much happier life than we do today. Let those who frequent the law courts – the best of them – bear witness to the fact that the atmosphere about them is foetid. Perjured witnesses are ranged on either side ready to sell their very souls for money or for friendship’s sake.
Young India, 6-10-1920, p. 2
29. I am unconvinced of the advantages of jury trials over those by judges…. At the right moment juries have been found to fail even in England. When passions are roused juries are affected by them and give perverse verdicts. Nor need we assume that they are always on the side of leniency. 1 have known juries finding prisoners guilty in the face of evidence and even judge’s summing up to the contrary. We must not slavishly copy all that is English. In matters where absolute impartiality, calmness and ability to sift evidence and understand human natures are required, we may not replace trained judges by untrained men brought together by chance. What we must aim at is an incorruptible, impartial and able judiciary right from the bottom.
Young India, 27-8-1931, p. 240
30. In Independent India of the non-violent type, there will be crime but no criminals. They will not be punished. Crime is disease like any other malady and is a product of the prevalent social system. Therefore, all crime including murder will be treated as a disease. Whether such an India will ever come into being is another question.
Harijian, 5-5-1946, p. 124
31. The symbol of a Court of Justice is a pair of scales held evenly by an impartial and blind but sagacious woman. Fate has purposely made her blind, in order that she may not judge a person from his exterior but from his intrinsic worth.
An Autobiography, (1959), p. 105
32. All crimes are different kinds of diseases and they should be treated as such by the reformers. That does not mean that the police will suspend their function of regarding such cases as public crimes, but their measures are never intended to deal with causes of these social disturbances. To do so is the special prerogative of the reformer. And unless the moral tone of society is raised such crimes will flourish, if only for the simple reason that the moral sense of these perverts has become blunt.
Gandhiji – His Life and Works, edited by D. G. Tendulkar and others, p. 381
33. I cannot in all conscience agree to any one being sent to the gallows…. I would draw the distinction between killing and detention or even corporal punishment. I think there is a difference not merely in quantity but also in quality. I can recall the punishment of detention. I can make reparation to the man upon whom I inflict corporal punishment. But once a man is killed, the punishment is beyond recall or reparation. God alone can take life, because He alone gives it.
Gandhiji – His Life and Works, edited by D. G. Tendulkar and others, p. 381
34. I do wish as a practised draftsman to warn writers of petition, whether they be pleaders or otherwise, to think of the cause they may be espousing for the time being. I assure them that a bare statement of facts embellished with adjectives is far more eloquent and effective than a narrative glowing with exuberant language. Petition writers must understand that they address busy men, not necessarily sympathetic, sometimes prejudiced, and almost invariably prone to sustain the decisions of their subordinates.
Young India, 27-9-1919
35. When there is war, the poet lays down the lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the school-boy his books. The poet will sing the true note after the war is over, the lawyer will have occasion to go to his law books when people have time to fight among themselves.
Young India, 1-9-1921
36. Under the Swaraj Government the law will not tolerate any arrogation of superiority by any person or class whether in the name of custom or religion.
Young India, 11-6-1931, p. 143
37. My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, De Luxe Edition, 1968 Vol. one, p. 270
38. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.
Quotes of Gandhi, UBS Publishers, New Delhi, (1995) p. 34
39. Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
Quotes of Gandhi, UBS Publishers, New Delhi, (1995) p. 65
40. Legal maxims are not so legal as they are moral. I believe in the eternal truth of ‘sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas’ (use thy own property so as notto injure thy neighbour’s).
Young India, 26-3-1921, p. 50 at p. 51
41. In order to enhance the status and the market-value of the provincial languages, I would have the language of the law courts to be the language of the province where the court is situated.
Harijan, 9-7-1938, pp. 177-78
42. The fear of the judge within is more terrible than that of the one without.
Mahatma, Vol. 2 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 63
43. Justice should become cheap and expeditious. Today it is the luxury of the rich and the joy of the gambler.
Mahatma, Vol. 4 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 422
44. Justice does not help the ones who slumber but helps only those who are vigilant. This is not a maxim to be mouthed in courts of law but to be applied in every concern of practical life.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XIV, p. 177
45. A Satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XXV, p. 163
46. The recognition of the golden rule of never taking the law into one’s own hands has no exceptions.
Mahatma, Vol. 8, 2nd Edition (1960) by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 103
47. Where death without resistance or death after resistance is the only way, neither party should think of resorting to law courts or help from government. Even if one of the parties resorts to such aid, the other should refrain. If resort to law courts cannot be avoided, there ought to be at least no resort to false evidence.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XXV, p. 138
48. Independence meant voluntary restraint and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law.
Mahatma, Vol. 8, 2nd Edition (1960) by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 100
49. All taxation to be healthy must return tenfold to the taxpayer in the form of necessary services.
Mahatma, Vol. 4, by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 211
50. Legal imposition avoids the necessity of honour or good faith.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XXVI, p. 162
51. Whether there is or there is not any law in force, the Government cannot exercise control over us without our cooperation. The existence of a law means that if we refused to accept it, we are liable to punishment, and generally it so happens that the fear of punishment leads men to submit to the restriction. But a Satyagrahi differs from the generality of men in that if he submits to a restriction, he submits voluntarily, not because he is afraid of punishment, but because he thinks such submission is essential to the common weal.
Satyagraha in South Africa, De Luxe Edition, 1968, Ch. 22, p. 218
52. It was the function of democracy to make justice cheap and expeditious and to ensure all possible purity in the administration. But, for the ministers to replace or to influence courts of justice was the very negation of democracy and law. No minister has the right to interfere with the course of justice, even for his dearest ones.
Mahatma, Vol. 8, by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 193
53. The demands of equity supersede the letter of law. There is a homely maxim of law, which has been in practice for centuries in England, that when common law seems to fail, equity comes to the rescue.
Mahatma, Vol. 8, by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 316
54. An oath may be taken in the name of God and yet may not be styled religious. An oath that witness takes in a court of law is a legal not a religious oath, breach of which would carry legal consequences. An oath taken by members of Parliament may be called a constitutional not a religious oath, breach of which may involve mundane consequences. Breach of a religious oath carries no legal consequences, but in the opinion of the taker does carry divine punishment. This does not mean that any of the three varieties of oaths is less binding than the others on a conscientious man. A conscientious witness will tell the truth, not for fear of the legal consequence, but he will do so in every case.
Harijan, 22-5-1937, p. 116
55. The poet (Rabindranath Tagore) thinks, for instance, that I want everybody to spin the whole of his time to the exclusion of all other activity, that is to say, that I want the poet to forsake his muse, the farmer his plough, the lawyer his brief and the doctor his lancet. So far is this from truth that I have asked no one to abandon his calling, but on the contrary to adorn it by giving every day only thirty minutes to spinning as sacrifice for the whole nation.
Young India, 5-11-1925
56. It is my confirmed belief that every Government masks its brute-force and maintains its control over the people through civil and criminal courts, for it is cheaper, simpler and more honourable for a ruler that instead of his controlling the people through naked force, they themselves, lured into slavery through courts, etc., submit to him of their own accord. If people settle their civil disputes among themselves and the lawyers, unmindful of self-interest, boycott the courts in the interest of the people, the latter can advance in no time. I have believed for many years that every State tries to perpetuate its power through lawyers.
The Penguin Gandhi Reader, Edited by Rudrangshu Mukheijee 1993 p. 135.
57. The master-key to the solution of the problem of Hindu-Muslim Unity is the replacement of the rule of the sword by that of arbitration. Honest public opinion should make it impossible for aggrieved parties to take the law into their own hands and every case must be referred to private arbitration or to law courts if the parties do not believe in non-co-operation.
Ibid, p. 262.
58. We shall never be able to raise the standard of public life through laws. We are not made that way. Only if the lives of the leaders, both private and public, are perfect, will they be able to produce any effect on the people. Mere preaching will have no effect.
The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer, Oxford University Press, 1996 p. 411.
59. On the political field, the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to bring the error home to the law-giver by way of petitions and the like, the only remedy open to you, if you do not wish to submit to it, is to compel him to retrace his steps by suffering in your person, i.e., by inviting the penalty for the breach of the law. Hence, satyagraha largely appears to the public as civil disobedience or civil resistance. It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.
Gandhi and Gandhism, by B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya Vol. 1, Kitabistan, Allahabad p. 104.
60. The criminal, i.e., the ordinary lawbreaker breaks the law surreptitiously and tries to avoid the penalty: not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the law of the State to which he belongs, not out of fear of the sanctions, but because he considers them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally rare, when he considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonour, he then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach. And in order to register his protest against the action of the law-giver, it is open to him to withdraw his co-operation from the state by disobeying such other laws whose breach does not involve moral turpitude.
Ibid, p. 104.
61. When the Rowlatt Bills were published, I felt that they were so restrictive of human liberty that they must be resisted to the utmost. I observed, too, that the opposition to them was universal among Indians. I submit that no state, however despotic, has the right to enact laws which are repugnant to the whole body of the people, much less a Government guided by constitutional usage and precedent, such as the Indian Government. I felt, too, that the oncoming agitation needed a definite direction, if it was neither to collapse nor to run into violent channels. I ventured therefore to present satyagraha to the country, emphasising its civil resistance aspect.
Gandhi and Gandhism, by B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya Vol. 1, Kitabistan, Allahabad p. 104-05.
62. The councilors want their fares and extras, the ministers their salaries, the lawyers their fees, the suitors their decrees, the parents such education for their boys as would give them status in the present life, the millionaires want facilities for multiplying their millions and the rest their unmanly peace. The whole revolves beautifully round the central corporation. It is a giddy dance from which no one cares to free himself and so, as the speed increases, the exhileration is the greater. But it is a death dance and the exhileration is induced by the rapid heartbeat of a patient who is about to expire.
Young India, 9-3-1922, p. 148.
63. There is no doubt that untouchability is a mental attitude. It cannot be abolished by legislation. Law can touch the body, but not the mind. The mind can be touched only by love and persuasion.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. LIV, p. 325.
64. People seem to think that when a law is passed against any evil, it will die without any further effort. There never was a grosser self-deception. Legislation is intended to be and is effective against an ignorant or a small evil-minded minority; but no legislation which is opposed by an intelligent and organized public opinion, or under cover of religion by a fanatical minority, can ever succeed.
Young India, 7-7-1927, p. 219
65. We must widen the prison gates and we must enter them as a bridegroom enters the bride’s chamber. Freedom is to be wooed only inside prison walls and sometimes on gallows, never in the council chamber, courts, or the schoolrooms.
The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, by Louis Fischer, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1983, p. 204
66. Justice will come when it is deserved by our being and feeling strong.
Mahatma, Vol. 2 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 240
67. The first condition of non-violence is justice all round, in every department of life.
Mahatma, Vol. 5 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 278
68. Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice, lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.
Mahatma, Vol. 5 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 193
69. It is open to a war resister to judge between two combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side.
Mahatma, Vol. 5 by D. G. Tendulkar, p. 193
70. I can certainly imagine a brave and believing weaver or cobbler more effectively leading our struggle than a timid and sceptical lawyer. Success depends upon bravery, sacrifice, truth, love and faith; not onlegal acumen, calculation, diplomacy, hate and unbelief.
Young India, 25-8-1921 p. 266
71. The removal of untouchability is not to be brought by any legal enactment. It will be brought about only when the Hindu conscience is roused to action and of its own accord removes the shame.
Young India, 30-6-1927
72. It is not legislation that will cure a popular evil. It is enlightened public opinion that can do it.
Young India, 26-8-1926
73. We are the makers of our own state. Individuals who realize the fact need not, ought not, to wait for collective action even as a hungry man does not wait for others to commence a meal before he falls to it. The one necessary condition for action is that like the hungry man, we must hunger after our deliverance. We need the same advice that was given to Martha by Jesus Christ. If we but do the one thing needful, there is no occasion for us to be anxious and troubled about the many things in the shape of wanting to know what our Governors will do, or who the next Prime Minister is likely to be, or what laws affecting us are likely to be passed.
Indian Opinion, 14-5-1910
74. For me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive. I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India. The law of the patriot is not different from that of the patriarch. And a patriot is so much the less a patriot if he is a lukewarm humanitarian. There is no conflict between private and political law. A non- cooperator for instance, would act exactly in the same manner toward his father or brother as he is today acting toward the British Government.
Indian Opinion, 16-3-1921
75. The question of reform of the legal profession is a big one. It does not admit of tinkering. I am strongly of opinion that lawyers and doctors should not be able to charge any fees but that they should be paid a certain fixed sum by the state and the public should receive their services free. They will have paid for them through the taxation that they would have paid for such services rendered to citizens automatically. The poor will be untaxed but the rich and the poor will have then the same amount of attention and skill. Today the best legal talents and the best medical advice are unobtainable by the poor.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XXXVI, p. 84
76. The attack against Justice Duleepsingh (Judge of the Punjab High Court who had on appeal acquitted the author of a pamphlet who had been prosecuted and sentenced by the lower courts under Section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code) was uncalled for, undeserved and hysterical. The judiciary is by no means above being influenced by the Government, but it would be wholly unfit to render justice if it was open to popular attacks, threats and insults. So far as the Judge’s integrity was concerned, it should have satisfied any Mussalman that he condemned the pamphlet as he. did in unmeasured terms. His reading of the section ought not to have been made a cause for virulent attack against him. That other judges have taken a different view from Justice Duleepsingh is irrelevant to the issue. Judges have been often known before now to have given honest and opposite interpretations of the same law.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Publications Division, Government of India, Vol. XXXV, pp. 15-16
77. A true Khudai Khidmatgar1 will not go to a law court. Fighting in a law court is just like physical fighting. Only, you use force by proxy.
