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The Lawful and the Awful
The citadel of justice is solemn and serious by design. But this book looks beyond that façade, bringing together a series of intriguing and surprising episodes that will appeal not only to lawyers and judges, but to non-legal readers as well. In The Lawful and the Awful, Tushar Mehta takes the reader into the lesser-known corners of the legal world, where personality presses against principle and the law reveals a side of itself rarely seen. Drawing on real cases from courts across the world, these pages recount judges who brandished loaded pistols inside courtrooms, penned poetry instead of judgments, or pronounced sentences from improbable places; the sharp wit and wisdom of the inimitable Justice Scalia; and memorable instances of the British art of courtroom humour. Written with wit, measured sarcasm, and the practised eye of a courtroom insider, these essays do not seek either to scandalize or to sermonize. They simply remind us that the citadel of justice is not always as solemn as it appears—and that the line between what is lawful and what is awful can sometimes be thinner than we might like to believe. This blurring of the line is what makes the law all the more interesting and fascinating.
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The Bench, the Bar, and the Bizarre
In The Bench, the Bar, and the Bizarre, Tushar Mehta invites you on a guided tour through the curious edges of the law—sometimes whimsical, sometimes absurd, and often unexpectedly funny. This book offers a collection of surprising and engaging incidents, events, and judgments that will appeal not only to lawyers and judges, but to non-legal readers as well. Drawing on real cases from around the world, this is the side of the law and its functionaries rarely seen: judges who expressed dissenting views in their judgments with remarkable vigour; maverick litigants who sued demons, the Devil, and even God—not out of mere eccentricity, but to prove a point; judges who harangued others over robes, wigs, and mobile phones; instances of judges unduly absorbed in social media; and those who, from the Bench, allowed authority occasionally to overwhelm restraint. Unpredictable and incisive, these episodes reveal the strange humanity that lurks behind the solemn rituals of justice—and remind us that the law, for all its dignity, can sometimes be gloriously bizarre, yet undeniably fascinating to legal professionals and lay readers alike.