Legal and Logical - An Anecdote

A young Law student, having failed his Law exam, goes up to his crusty old
professor who is renowned for his razor-sharp legal mind.

Student: "Sir, do you really understand everything about this subject?"

Professor: "Actually, I probably do. Otherwise I wouldn't be a professor, would I?"

Student: "OK. In that case I'd like to ask you a question. If you can give me the correct answer, I will accept my marks as it is. If you can't give me the correct answer, then you'll have to give me an A".

Professor: "Hmm.... all right. So what's the question?"

Student: "What is legal but not logical, logical but not legal and neither logical nor legal? "

The professor wracks his famous brain, but just can't crack the answer. Finally he gives up and changes the student's failing mark into an A as agreed and the student goes away, very pleased.....

The professor continues to wrack his brain over the question all afternoon, but still cant get the answer. So finally he calls in a group of his brightest students and tells them he has a really, really tough question to answer: "What is legal but not logical, logical but not legal, and neither logical nor legal? "

To the professor's surprise (and embarrassment), all the students immediately raise their hands.

"All right....." says the professor and asks his favourite student to answer.


"It's quite easy sir...." says the student, "You see, you are 75 years old and
married to a 30 year old woman, which is legal, but not logical. Your wife has a 22 year old boy friend, which is logical, but not legal. And your wife's boy friend failed his exam but you've just given him an "A", which is neither legal, nor logical!"

Law and sacrifice

Law and sacrifice - Indian Express Editorial

The Lucknow bench’s verdict on Ayodhya is far from simple. And that is unsurprising: the judiciary was asked to respond to an entire block of issues, by one judge’s count as many as 30. And the exact implications of the judgment, the precedent it sets, and its relationship to settled law will be discussed and dissected for some time — which is as it should be. The most important thing, however, is that it be discussed calmly; and parties to the case give every evidence of being willing to do that, even as they weigh the merits of an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court.

That is, in fact, an indicator of the judgment’s broad thrust. None of the petitioners is completely happy, and each thinks an appeal might be called for. In effect, this is a reminder that maximalist positions of any sort will be either untenable or unimplementable. Whatever the way forward now, it will of necessity involve compromise and agreement. That is, in the three-judge bench’s opinion, the legal outcome; and that is also, by all appearance, the likely political requirement.

It is important, too, to take a step back and realise what was being asked of the courts and the people of India here. Our judicial institutions were being asked to address what has been one of the most divisive political issues that independent India has faced; and so many of India’s people, forward-looking and aspirational, have expected that a peaceful, legal mechanism will provide satisfactory closure to the problem. In this verdict, and in what appears for now to be a measured response to it, we see that hope in action. But what is true by implication is that, if the court’s verdict on this issue is to have political heft, other Ayodhya-related cases can’t be considered minor or forgettable. Nobody can stand behind the judicial process on this case — and in the matter of the Babri demolition case, for example, duck out of legal consequences. The question of culpability for that act is completely unrelated to the legal question of ownership of the Babri site. And those cases need to be pursued visibly and energetically. They, too, reflect the hope of the vast majority of Indians that our institutions are mature enough to deal with vexed questions without permitting the use of violence. Faith in the law requires stringent action against those who take the law into their own hands.