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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
108
this method of looking at things. The profession of pleading depends on one's intellectual powers or intelligence. Pleading is intended to safeguard the interests of innocent people. But a selfish lawyer may use his powers of pleading and advocacy to safeguard the interests of the guilty people also because he can get more money from the guilty people. When Mahatma Gandhi became a barrister he vowed never to accept a false case. He would accept only just cases-a just case is one in which an innocent man has suffered some injustice and it is the duty of every honest lawyer to safeguard the interests of an innocent person.
Just as it is our duty to safeguard the innocent, it is also our duty to see that the guilty are punished.
The following incident took place in England. A man had committed a murder. The wife of the deceased filed a case in the Session's Court. Since there was no evidence against him, the murderer was acquitted. The woman appealed to the High Court. Even there she had to face a defeat, because the murderer was acquitted for want of evidence.
But the woman did not give way to despair. She was very affluent. She would never rest satisfied until the murderer was duly punished. She contacted many eminent advocates to pursue the case further by means of an appeal but in spite of the offer of a heavy fee no advocate was willing to take up the case, because they thought that since, she had lost her case both in the Sessions Court and in the High Court for want of evidence, the case would fail in future also and that if they accepted the case, their name and fame would be affected and it would also affect their future practice.
At the end, someone suggested to her the name of Pandit Motilal Nehru. He was of course an Indian and if he was invited the advocates in England might feel inIsulted but what could the woman do? She wanted to try even this last method. She invited Pandit Motilal Nehru. She assured him that she would pay him as much
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