Fali Sam Nariman Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

In my view, I'm most fascinated by constitutional law. How to work the constitution is far more important than how to write it. It is much easier to write the constitution. I recall when the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh came to visit me, (to draft the Bangladesh Constitution). I was the Additional Solicitor General then. We gave them ideas and drafts were exchanged, but it didn't last for more than a couple of years. Writing a constitution is simpler; borrowing ideas from everywhere is nothing great. How to work the constitution is a grave challenge and it's fascinating.

Fali Sam Nariman
We in this country also need to make sure that the doors of learning are always kept open because India still belongs to the developing world.

Fali Sam Nariman
Because these two judges showed to their generation of justices, and the generation after that, as to how to approach cases that came before the highest court. It is because judges with a political or social agenda are so few in number that they are long remembered. I have always considered it significant and beneficial for the development of the law in India that judges-without-an-agenda have been the more numerous.

Fali Sam Nariman
Law is a matter of the heart, as well as the head. You have to have compassion; it is one of the greatest qualities. Lord Denning and Justice Krishna Iyer have both said that compassion is extraordinarily important in the law, amongst lawyers and particularly amongst Judges. One must be able to assess whether a person has something genuine to say in a case.

Fali Sam Nariman
He was optimistic about the future of India Though never too optimistic about its governments - whether central or state, whether past, present or future.

Fali Sam Nariman
Noting that the prosperity witnessed around was "skin deep," Nariman said he was not sure whether because of globalisation or despite globalisation, the rich in India appeared to be getting richer and the poor still remained mired in abject poverty, shut out from education and job opportunities.

Fali Sam Nariman
Don't despair. Governments are the same everywhere - in every country.

Fali Sam Nariman
... Don't be disheartened as so many have become - about quotas and reservations in education,

Fali Sam Nariman
I have lived and flourished in a secular India. In the fullness of time if God wills, I would also like to die in a secular India.

Fali Sam Nariman
As a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, your most important intervention was in suggesting that before investigating corruption allegations against senior officers, the CBI should get approval from the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) rather than the government. Didn't the rejection of your proposal show that all political parties are united in shielding corrupt officers?

Fali Sam Nariman
A Case I Won – But I Would Prefer To Have Lost. Criticizing his own win, Nariman said I don't see what is so special about the first five judges of the Supreme Court. They are only the first five in seniority of appointment – not necessarily in superiority of wisdom or competence. I see no reason why all the judges in the highest court should not be consulted when a proposal is made for appointment of a high court judge (or an eminent advocate) to be a judge of the Supreme Court. I would suggest that the closed-circuit network of five judges should be disbanded.

Fali Sam Nariman
'violate the human rights of others', is impractical and fraught with grave consequences as it puts an almost impossible burden on the lawyer of pre-judging guilt; and (more important) it precludes the person charged with infringing the human rights of another (such as one accused of murder) the right to be defended by a 'lawyer of his choice - in my country, a guaranteed constitutional right.

Fali Sam Nariman
I generally keep up to date with recent academic writings in law and literature; and to keep myself up to date I also subscribe to and browse through the New York Review of Books – a bi-weekly feature which gives all the current publications around the world – as well as the London Review of Books.

Fali Sam Nariman
The two great institutions of state to which I have been privileged to belong do appear from time to time to compromise themselves, as you say. However, I must assure you that but for these two great institutions we would never have emerged as a vibrant democracy. The late Justice R S Pathak once used a nice metaphor when I asked him how he would like to be remembered as a judge of the Supreme Court. He told me, with becoming humility: Every judge when he leaves the court must satisfy himself that he has left a little brick of his own making in that great edifice that is the Supreme Court of India.

Fali Sam Nariman
I don't think, Mr. Palkhiwala, you can add anything more to what Mr. Nariman has so well presented. These were some of the early memories in the Bombay Bar which Mr Nariman still recalls and cherish.

Fali Sam Nariman
I don't like the system of Moot-Courts these days, in law schools. My grand-daughter participates in these Moot-Courts, but I don't like the idea of saying, in A vs. B it was said etc. It makes no difference to what was said. According to Halsbury's, it was said in Queen vs. Latham that it makes no difference what was said in a given case because by and large all of it depends on the facts of the case, except for constitutional matters.

Fali Sam Nariman
Affirmative action in education is what we need — not quotas, he said, delivering the 49th convocation address at the IIT Madras.

Fali Sam Nariman
One very important thing that young lawyers must know is that when one argues a case and later in the evening you ponder over it and say, that's what I should have said (but you never said it), that's the only regret. It could have been the winning point or something you wish you had not said, which is even worse. If you get angry at that point in the courtroom, losing your temper can be a disaster. You can't afford it because your client suffers and nobody likes you for it. It all comes with age and practice.

Fali Sam Nariman