Jaina Law Bhadrabahu Samhita

Author(s): J L Jaini
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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APPENDIX B.
Mahomadan or Glentu, by the laws and usages of the defendant." (Statute 21 George III cl. 70, section 17) Sir William Jones, writing on 19th March 1788, says :
"Nothing could be more obviously just than to determine private contests according to those laws, which the parties themselves had ever considered as the rules of their conduct and engngements in civil life. Nor could anything be viser than, by a legislative act, to assure the Hindu and Musalman subjects of Great Britain that the private lata which they severnlly hold sacred and a violation of which they would have thought the most grievous oppression should not be superseded by a new system, of which they could have no knowledge and which they must have considered as imposed on them by a spirit of rigor and intolerance." (Quoted in preface to Digest of Hindu Laro by Colebrook (17th December 1796, Mirzapur) P. V. and Vi.)
The Statute 21 G. III C. 70 laid down for the Calcutta Courts that the law applicable should be the law of the parties or that of the defendant. Tor Madras and Bombay similar rules were made. (37 G. III c. 142). By an elementary principle of analogy, in the spirit of Sir Williams Jones's dictum, a similar provision would apply to Jainas. Indeed, no such express enactment is passed by the Government, but the Courts tacitly recognised the justice of this. Their difficulty hos always been to discover the Jaina Lav. And, as pode vas forthcoming, the conclusion was irrerestible that it was nonexistent. To causes fed this error. One as the pious horror (not yet quite defunct) of the Jainas at their books being handled or read by non-Jainas. The other was the self-seeking propensity of human nature. It is almost always in the interest of one party to a litigation to assert that he is bound by Hinda Law, although & Jaina, as it is for the other party to own the binding authority of the law and custom of the Jainas.