Mohammad Hidayatullah Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

Law and order represents the largest circle within which is the next circle representing public order and the smallest circle represents security of State. It is then easy to see that an Act may affect law and order but not public order, just as an act may affect public order but not security of the State.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
The State is at the centre and the society surrounds it. Disturbances of society go in a broad spectrum from more disturbance of the serenity of life to jeopardy of the State. The acts become graver (and graver) as we journey from the peripheral of the largest circle towards the centre. In this journey we travel first through public tranquility, then through public order and lastly to the security of the State.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
Liberty of the Individual has to be Fundamental and it has been so declared by the people... To change the Fundamental part of Individual's liberty is a usurpation of constituent functions because they have been placed outside the scope of the power of the constituted Parliament.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
While in London I became interested in speaking in public. I lectured at Hyde Park Corner when the Simon Commission was being boycotted in India as no Indian was a member. I stood the heckling well and even indulged in a little ridicule. People completely ignorant of India and Indian conditions would heckle me. One fellow claimed that he had lived in India and Kabul which he asserted was the capital of India.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
In the most inalienable of such rights a distinction must be made between possession of a right and its exercise. The first is fixed and the latter controlled by justice and necessity.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
I spoke in debates arranged by the Indian students in London and once V. K. Krishna Menon opposed me. The debate concerned the role of Asia in world affairs and I used the word Asiatic. Menon raised a laugh against me by saying that he did not like the word because it rhymed with 'lunatic' although I should consider myself free to use it. He advised me to use the word 'Asian' instead. When my turn came for reply, I thanked him for his advice but preferred to stick to the Asiatics adding that he had no objection of Menon calling an Asian although the word rhymed with 'Simian'. This brought the house down and even Menon joined in the laughter and clapping.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
There is no higher principle for the guidance of the Court than the one that no act of Courts should harm a litigant and it is the bounden duty of Courts to see that if a person is harmed by a mistake of the Court he should be restored to the position he would have occupied but for that mistake.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
The family connection with the Hindu Holy of Holies (Benares) was apparent in the many Hindu traditions and customs observed in our house-hold. Beef was as taboo as pork was and Divali used to be observed with Divas, as indeed several other Hindu festivals. The orthodox Muslims looked askance at us and we merited Iqbal's couplet: "The orthodox preacher considers me as an Unbeliever and Unbleiver thinks I am a Muslim."

Mohammad Hidayatullah
The artistic appeal or presentation of an episode robs it of its vulgarity and harm...

Mohammad Hidayatullah
I crave to be understood because when a person writes about himself, he does not work in obscurity but a little too much in the light which he focuses on himself. To me the satisfaction comes from the fact that at least I have said something about myself in my own voice without 'paraphrasing any hard truths'.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
Where obscenity and art are mixed art must be so preponderating as to throw the obscenity into shadow.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
I chose the title of the book from Oliver Wendel Holme's subtitle to his Aristocrat of the Breakfast Table; Every man His own Boswell. I was a miscellanist before I attempted a full length book. I learnt the art of narration from Boswell. After all even Macaulay, in spite of many hard things he said of Boswell, did acknowledge that he was the first of biographers and the world has since considered him the greatest.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
I was so excited to hear the Trinity College the first night of my stay in the College:
Trinity's loquacious clock
Who never let the quarters, night and day,
Slip by him improclaimed, and told the hours
Twice over with a male and female voice...

Mohammad Hidayatullah
... we need not shed tears over what has happened and we can look forward – not be forward looking, but look forward – to an era which will be as good as the one which has gone before.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
In the car, President Nixon seemed relaxed and quite flattered by the response of the people. Characteristically he asked me: Mr President, do people always turn out like this to greet the Indian President or is this because of the President of the United States? I sensed the comparison. I quietly replied Mr President, I would suspect that many youngsters are here to see what a bullet-proof car looks like! He smiled and replied You have a point there!.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
It is true that Judges, as the upholders of the Constitution and the laws, are least likely to err but the possibility of their acting contrary to the Constitution cannot be completely excluded.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
I was never in the mood of Lord Macaulay who said – I shall retire early I am very tired– I know that life meant that one must continue to occupy his time with work.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
This was an attempt of not creating 'forward looking judges' but the 'judges looking forward' to the plumes of the office of Chief Justice.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
The cherished right on which our democracy rests is meant for the expression of free opinions to change political or social conditions or for the advancement of human knowledge.

Mohammad Hidayatullah
If a Judge, without any reason, orders the members of say one political party out of his Court, those so ordered may seek to enforce their fundamental rights against him and it should make no difference that the order is made while he sits as a Judge. Even if appeal lies against such an order, the defect on which relief can be claimed, is the breach of fundamental rights.

Mohammad Hidayatullah