ENGLISH PROJECT- EXAMPLE OF WAYS IN WHICH LAW

CAN PRODUCTIVELY USE LITERARY NOTES AS A LEGAL

ARGUEMENT

By – Soumil Goyal
Class- B.A.l.L.b
Roll no- 97
5th Semester
 INTRODUCTION
Law has always produced and promoted legal fictions
and the substantive interpretation of law often rests
upon on a body of rhetorical figures and scenarios.
The imaginative and moral character of legal fiction
can often be found wanting, but there are times when
the courts produce inspired moral visions that outdo
even literature. Nandini Sundar v. State of Chattisgarh
is an excellent example of the ways in which the law
can productively use metaphor as legal argument (‘our
constitution is not a pact for national suicide’)
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
In this case The Supreme Court has held that the use of
extra-legal armed forces in Chhattisgarh is
unconstitutional. Responding to a PIL filed by Nandini
Sundar, Ramachandra Guha and E.A.S. Sharma, the
court’s decision turns on the nature of the Salwa Judum
and the appointment of special police officers under the
Chhattisgarh Police Act. But if it were a judgment that
had merely ruled on the technicalities, it would have
been a welcome and competent order, but would have
missed its moment of constitutional greatness. This
judgment attains such greatness by virtue of its
deft combination of insightful legal analysis, the
articulation of a moral vision of constitutionalism
and development and its sharp invocation of
rhetoric (in the best sense of the term) and fiction
to buttress its arguments.
LITERARY DEVICES USED IN JUDGEMENT
 ALLUSION

 EPIGRAPH

 APHORISM

 METAPHOR

 SIMILIE
 ALLUSION
ALLUSION- An allusion is when an author refers to the
events or characters from another story in his or her own
story with the hopes that those events will add context or
depth to the story she’s trying to tell

In this case honble Justice begins by saying that This case

represents a yawning gap between the promise of principled
exercise of power in a constitutional democracy, and the
reality of the situation in Chattisgarh, where the Respondent,
the State of Chattisgarh, claims that it has a constitutional
sanction to perpetrate, indefinitely, a regime of gross
violation of human rights in a manner, and by adopting the
same modes, as done by Maoist/Naxalite extremists.

Then he goes on to invoke Joseph Conrad “Heart of

Darkness” As we heard the instant matters before us, we
could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of
(i) the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for
life and the sublime;

(ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and

finally,

(iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to

which individual human beings are capable of descending,
when supreme and unaccounted force is vested,
rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as
pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of
command.

To make the public understand real depth of the situation

the author refers to the events of another story.
 EPIGRAPH
An Epigraph is a reference to another work that
an author hopes will help readers understand her
own work.Unlike an allusion, and epigraph stands
apart from the text itself , rather than being
included in it.

Here the Honble Justice uses the Following

Epigraph to upheld the extra legal forces in
Chattisgarh illegal :

We are trying to get ourselves out of this

avantura(reckless gamble) and now you are
pulling us into another one.
 APHORISM
An Aphorism is a terse saying, expressing a general truth,
principle, or astute observation, and spoken or written in a
laconic and memorable form. Aphorism literally means a
“ditinction” or “ defination”. The term was first used in the
Aphorisms of Hippocrates”

Rejecting the urgency argument, the court constantly

reiterates the need to address the underlying socio-economic
roots of armed struggles, and brings back the question of just
means into an issue where the state had virtually erased the
difference between means and ends. The judges remind us
that no conflict takes place in a normative void, and rejecting
Cicero’s thesis that laws are silent during war, the judges
bring back the urgency of political ethics into their discussion
on violence. In para 70, the judges hold

.This combat is not taking place in a normative void…. The

saying, “When the canons roar, the Muses are silent,” is
The foundations of this approach is not only
pragmatic consequence of a political and
normative reality. Its roots lie much deeper. It is an
expression of the difference between a democratic
state fighting for its life and the aggression of
terrorists rising up against it. The state fights in
the name of the law, and in the name of upholding
the law. The terrorists fight against the law, and
exploit its violation. The war against terror is also
the law’s war against those who rise up against it.”
 METAPHOR
When attempting to describe an image or event, an author
often will find it useful to compare what she’s describing to
another image or event. This is called metaphor , and it gives
the reader a fresh , sometimes startling ways of imagining
what’s going on.

The master of law Honble Justice used the metaphor “

Importance is Depth” to assert the depth of the situation.
Here he actually wants to explain that the importance does
not lies in combatting the militants but by understanding the
depth of the situation and dealing with core of the problem.
 SIMILIE

A FIGURE Of speech involving the comparison of one thing with

another thing of a different kind , used to make the description
more emphathetic or vivid(e.g. as brave as lion).

Here the similie used “ A vague thought as elusive as the smell

of primrose”.

Rejecting the contention of curbing militants by engaging more

forces is a vague thought which is hard to find as the smell of
primrose (flower).