________________
128
Bahadur Danavira Seth Kalyanmal of Indore, and others. To ignore the clear meaning and authority of the Jaina Law books will be to deny to the Jaina community the undoubted right of being governed by their own laws. General ignorance of Jaina Law and Jaina tradition among law-givers and lawadministrators is no justification for me to ignore the express texts of Jaina Law books and usage of the Jainas and to trample upon the rights of a considerable people in the State. It would be doing injustice to a very important and numerous portion of His Highness the Maharaja Holkar's subjects. No State ever contemplates this. Even in conquered Colonies, where a system of civilised law already exists, this continues in force until altered. Campbell vs. Hall, 1774, 20 St. Tr. P. 323. And there is no law of any kind anywhere which abrogates Jaina Law, or divests it of its authority. Indeed, as to India, Sir William Jones said in 1788:
APPENDIX B.
"Nothing could be more obviously just than to deter mine private contests according to those laws which the parties themselves had ever considered as the rules of their conduct and engagements in civil life. Nor could anything be wiser than, by a legislative act, to assure the Hindu and Muselman subjects of Great Britain that the private laws, which they severally hold sacred and a violation of which they would have thought the most grevious oppression, should not be superseded by a new system, of which they could have no knowledge and which they must have considered as imposed on them by a spirit of rigour and intolerance (Quoted in preface to Digest of Hinda Law by Colebrooks (17th December 1796, p. v-vi).
This sums up the position so justly that I make no apology for repeating this classical passage. On the ground of policy and stare decisis also, the course I have adopted is the only possible course. Ignoring the authority of the Jaina law texts,
