Law and Lawyers: Parsi Rustomji, truth at the Bar and Gandhi's legal philosophy

1. How a client was saved (chapter 19)

Who Rustomji was. Parsi Rustomji, a large importer of goods from Bombay and Calcutta in Natal, was first Gandhi’s co-worker in public work and then his client. He trusted Gandhi even in domestic matters and when ill.

Why he approached Gandhi. He had been smuggling for years. He was on such good terms with the customs officials that they took his invoices on trust. He had kept this one thing back from Gandhi. When the smuggling was detected he ran to Gandhi in tears: “Bhai, I have deceived you. My guilt has been discovered today. I have smuggled and I am doomed. I must go to jail and be ruined. You alone may be able to save me.” Gandhi quotes the Gujarati poet Akho: theft, like quicksilver, will not stay hidden.

What Gandhi did

1. He insisted on confession. “I can but try to save you by means of confession.” Confessing to Gandhi was not enough: “You have wronged not me but Government.”
2. He kept the case out of court. Rustomji’s old counsel expected a jury trial, and “a Natal jury will be the last to acquit an Indian.” Gandhi’s view was that the decision to prosecute lay with the Customs Officer, guided by the Attorney-General, and he would approach both.
3. He prepared his client for the worst. Rustomji must offer to pay whatever penalty was fixed and, if refused, be ready to go to jail: “the shame lies not so much in going to jail as in committing the offence. … The real penance lies in resolving never to smuggle again.”
4. He disclosed everything. He met the Customs Officer, told him the whole affair and offered all the account books. The officer liked the old Parsi but referred him to the Attorney-General. Gandhi wrote to and met the Attorney-General, who appreciated his complete frankness: “I see you will never take a no for an answer.”
5. The result. The case was compromised. Rustomji paid a penalty equal to twice the amount he confessed to having smuggled. He wrote out the facts, framed the paper and hung it in his office as a perpetual reminder to his heirs and fellow merchants.

2. Truth at the Bar (chapter 17, “Some Reminiscences of the Bar”)

As a student Gandhi had heard that law was a liar’s profession. He resolved otherwise. He warned every new client that he would not take a false case or coach witnesses; soon clients brought him their clean cases and took doubtful ones elsewhere.

The “sharp practice” case. In a long accounts dispute the arbitrators’ award favoured Gandhi’s client but contained an error: an entry put on the credit side instead of the debit side. The senior counsel refused to admit it. Gandhi, as junior, insisted that the error be admitted, and the client agreed: “Let us lose, if that is to be our lot. God defend the right.” Before the Supreme Court a judge asked, “Is not this sharp practice, Mr. Gandhi?” Gandhi asked to be heard out, explained that the error was inadvertent, and the court upheld the award with the slip corrected. He was confirmed in his belief that law can be practised without compromising truth.

3. Gandhi’s rules as a practising lawyer

The editor’s introduction and the Autobiography chapters give these:

• Facts first: facts are three-fourths of the law; never slur over an inconvenient fact.
• Compromise: the true function of a lawyer is to unite parties riven asunder; advise settlement out of court wherever possible.
• No false case, no coached witness; withdraw, even in open court, if the client is found to have deceived him, because as an officer of the court he could not knowingly deceive it.
• Candour about ignorance: send the client to senior counsel where he was at sea.
• Fees: never conditional on winning; low or no fees for the poor; nothing beyond expenses for public work; he never sued a client for fees.
• Law as “codified ethics”, a means to enthrone justice, not to “make black appear white”.

He gave up practice around 1910 (the introduction’s date), because a profession that finally relies on the policeman and jailer to enforce decrees rests on force and so, to him, denied ahimsa. He later called himself a farmer and weaver.

4. “Lawyers’ Duty” (chapter 54, Navajivan, 4 May 1930)

Gandhi admits he has criticised lawyers, but lists the great lawyers of the freedom movement: Pherozeshah Mehta, Tilak, Lajpat Rai, C. R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Malaviya, Vithalbhai and Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajagopalachari, Munshi and others. People expect every lawyer to be a patriot because a lawyer is, by profession, an advocate of people’s rights and a protector of the victims of State oppression. When lawyers instead chase self-interest or encourage litigation for money, people speak ill of them.

He asks lawyers to offer civil disobedience even at the cost of their sanads, and lists what fearless lawyers can do: keep accounts of public funds; explain legal intricacies to the people; inquire into arbitrarily handled civil disobedience cases; be present where violence is feared; expose arbitrary use of authority and Government misdeeds; help make khadi; help women in the boycott of foreign cloth; and lead the people where leaders have been arrested.

5. Model answer: “Explain Gandhi’s legal philosophy” / “various aspects of Gandhiji’s personality”

Organise the answer under five headings, each with one incident from the text: (1) truth before victory (the sharp-practice case; Rustomji’s confession); (2) reconciliation (Dada Abdulla and Tyeb Sheth); (3) industry and mastery of facts (reading all the textbooks in London; learning book-keeping in Pretoria); (4) courage and self-respect (the Political Agent; the 1922 trial, where he asked for the severest penalty); (5) service (no fees for public work; staying on in Natal to fight the Franchise Bill). Conclude that for Gandhi law was codified ethics and the lawyer a servant of truth and justice before he was the servant of a client.

How this is examined

“Why did Parsi Rustomji approach Gandhi?” (January 2026, June 2025), “How did Gandhiji solve Parsi Rustomji’s problem?” (January 2025), “How does Gandhi save his friend and client Parsi Rustomji?” (100-mark papers, 2025 and 2026), “Explain M. K. Gandhi’s legal philosophy” (June 2025, 100 marks), “Explain the various aspects of Gandhiji’s personality” (January 2026, 100 marks), and “Lawyer’s duty” as one of the short cases (June 2025).