glorious uncertainties.....

Sometimes, not often, but often enough to keep me on the look out for more, the law cracks me up. Crica 1860s a group of lawyers in London raised a toast to the "glorious uncertainties of the law". Some 30 years before, Charles Dickens was proudly proclaiming that "the law, sir, is an ass".

Indian courts and our lawyers, circa 2008, live out both declarations. Exhibit one: the following case that I came across accidently (for the legally minded amongst you- Shah Rukh Khan v. State of Rajasthan, MANU/RH/0664/2007- and no I was not running a search for Shah Rukh Khan on Manupatra!!). The facts, in the words of the Rajasthan High Court, are as follows:

In a nutshell, the facts of the case are that, in 1996, under the direction of Mr. Rajiv Mehra, a Hindi film Ram Jaane was released for public viewing after due certification by the Central Board of Certification. The Petitioner played the role of the protagonist in the film. In the later part of the film, the hero is tried for triple murders. In the courtroom scene, the defense lawyer gets up to defend the hero who is, however, bent upon confessing his crime. He, therefore, questions the conduct of the lawyer and says:(This lawyer well knows that I have killed the three persons, yet he tries to save me. Why? For the sake of money, no? For the sake of money, he sells his morals. He sells the laws. By selling the laws, you people have turned life into a misery.) (English translation of the Hindi dialogue)

3. According to the respondents Nos. 2 to 7, the said movie was released in Kota as well. When they went to see the movie, they found the above-noted dialogue as defamatory against the community of lawyers practicing in India. They claim that because of the said dialogue, the respondents were subjected to ridicule and anger from those who were sitting in the movie theater. They also allege that their neighbours ridiculed them as well. Hence, the respondents Nos. 2 to 7 filed a criminal complaint against Mr. Shah Rukh Khan (the Petitioner), Mr. Rajiv Mehra (the director), Mr. Pravesh Mehra (the producer), Mr. ShriKant Sharma (the co-scriptwriter), Ms. Juhi Chawla (the heroine), and M/s Vinayak Film Industries (the distributors in Rajasthan), and M/s Unkown Distributors[amazing name, no??] (distributors for India) alleging defamation and criminal conspiracy, offences Under Section s 500,501 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code ('IPC, for short), before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, No. 1, Kota.

Are these lawyers who take themselves so seriously really surprised that they were "subjected to ridicule and anger"?? The Magistrate in question actually took cognizance of the case, and dismissed an application to discharge the accused!! Thankfully the High Court quashed the proceedings, but not before taking us through a catena of Supreme Court judgments, theories of Hobbes, Kant, Rousseau, etc on social contract and the purpose of state, quotations from every creative artist worth his/her salt down the ages on aristic freedom and what it means to be involved in creative activity (sample: "According to Bharat Muni, the author of Bharat Natya Shastra, the function of an actor is to capture the "ras", the essence of the moment, and to portray it in such a manner as to immerse the audience into a specific emotion for the moment. The actor is but a conduit for carrying the preconceived emotion. Understood thus, drama can be viewed as a means of audience's liberation from their mundane existence....The learned Magistrate has overlooked the aesthetic aspect of the case, the aspect which makes a film a film, or a work of art, art."). waah, waah!!

Interestingly, throughout the case, the court, in deciding when a "class of persons" can be defamed, refers to various decisions dating as far back as 1858 which state, for example, that "If a man wrote that all lawyers were thieves, no particular lawyer could sue him..." or "no action would lie at the suit of anyone for saying that all mankind is vicious and depraved or even for alleging that all clergymen are hypocrites or all lawyers dishonest." I wonder if the judge was having a toungue-in-cheek go at the complainants:-)

The whole case and the seriousness with which it was taken, cracked me up. But the killer line came from a Patna High Court decision cited in the judgment:

"Advocates as a class are incapable of being defamed."

Now there's a defamatory statement if I ever heard one!!