Solicitor General Tushar Mehta launched two non-fiction books on legal humour from foreign jurisdictions. The event, attended by HM Amit Shah and CJI Surya Kant, was filled with witty speeches, courtroom anecdotes, and light-hearted humour.
Through both books, Mehta attempts to explore the lighter and often bizarre side of the legal profession through real courtroom anecdotes drawn entirely from foreign jurisdictions. Interestingly, Mehta made it clear that he consciously chose to keep Indian courts, judges and legal incidents out of the books because he continues to practise before Indian courts.
SGI Tushar Mehta on his books
“Since I am practising in India, and intend to practice here for years to come, I have chosen not to include any incidents from Indian law, Indian courts or Indian judges. We should all learn from laws and legal systems across various jurisdictions across the globe,” Mehta said.
The launch event took place in the presence of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Justice Surya Kant, Attorney General of India (AGI) R. Venkataramani, Supreme Court judges, High Court judges and senior members of the Bar.
Mehta described the books as a departure from conventional legal writing and stressed that they were neither academic works nor critiques of law. “I have deliberately chosen a different subject. They are not treatises, not critiques, and I have not pretended them to be scholarly works. It is a collection of true stories,” he said.
Calling the event “a bizarre appearance”, Mehta joked that he usually appears before judges in courtrooms and not at literary gatherings. “All lawyers are at home when they discuss what is lawful. But frankly, today is the occasion where there is an emerging line between the lawful and the awful. Without reading the books, you can decide that,” he said.
Describing the books as an exploration of the lighter side of law, Mehta compared the exercise to “a surgeon writing humourous his operation theatre”. He also said the books intentionally draw from foreign jurisdictions despite his own reluctance to cite foreign laws in court. “Well known that I am not someone who quotes foreign laws or cases. Precisely for that reason, I have chosen this subject,” he said.
Mehta thanked those present for attending the launch and also expressed gratitude to Home Minister Amit Shah for attending despite his schedule. He said he would have launched his first book with Shah regardless of the office he held.
Amit Shah on ‘Court-Sarkar’ relations
Speaking at the event, Home Minister Amit Shah also joked that his presence at the launch would inevitably be viewed politically and through the prism of relations between the judiciary and the government rather than merely as a literary event or a gathering among friends.
“Somebody advised me this morning that my presence here won’t merely be seen as me being friends with Tushar Mehta. It won’t be seen as a critique of the books like the rest of the invitees here. It will only be seen in the context of ‘Court aur Sarkar ke relations’,” Shah said in Hindi.
The Home Minister added in a lighter vein that the media would not get anything controversial from the event. Referring to the books, Shah said Mehta had highlighted several lesser-known and unusual aspects of the legal profession through humour and storytelling.
CJI praises books for humanising law
The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant described Mehta’s books as an unusual literary attempt that strips the legal profession of its intimidating image and instead presents courts, lawyers and judges through humour, absurdity and deeply human moments.
The CJI said the books succeed in transforming dense legal settings, procedural rigidity and courtroom formalities into stories that remain accessible even to readers outside the legal fraternity.
According to the CJI, the books move beyond mere jokes and reveal the theatre, personalities and everyday eccentricities that shape the functioning of courts. Drawing from the books’ central theme, Justice Kant remarked that reading them felt like binging a courtroom drama that accidentally wandered into a stand-up special.
He said Mehta had entered “the hallowed halls of the legal world armed with nothing but sharp quips and a keen eye” and managed to produce stories capable of making “even the most stoic jurist crack a big smile”.
The mystery of the 25th hour
The CJI repeatedly returned to what he described as the evening’s biggest mystery — how the Solicitor General managed to write two books despite handling one of the busiest constitutional offices in the country.
Justice Kant painted a picture of Mehta constantly moving between Court No. 1, government responsibilities and voluminous case briefs before jokingly suggesting that the author must either possess more hours in a day than everyone else or use courtroom downtime to write humour.
“As the Solicitor General of India, I see him spending his mornings in Court Number 1, his afternoons probably divided between other courtrooms and government work, and his evenings, I hope, reading thousands of pages of briefs. And yet, we are all here to launch not one, but two books,” Justice Kant said.
“I have two running theories. Either Tushar Bhai has successfully petitioned the Almighty for a 25th hour in the day and kept that order strictly for himself, or he has discovered that the best time for comedic writing is while Court No. 1 is taking too long to read a file during a hearing. My money’s on the latter,” he said.
‘Heightened survival instinct’ behind omissions
Justice Kant also used the occasion to tease Mehta over his decision to consciously exclude Indian courts and judges from both books. The CJI suggested that the omission may have had less to do with literary choice and more to do with professional caution, especially for someone who appears before the Supreme Court every day.
“I think omitting the Indian Bench from his razor-sharp volumes wasn’t just editorial discretion, but actually his heightened survival instinct,” Justice Kant remarked.
“You see, Tushar Bhai knows that if he wrote about our quirks, his next ‘Mentioning’ would have been outrightly rejected in Court No. 1 without the scope of a Review Petition,” he added as laughter intensified among the audience.
The CJI further suggested that Mehta’s “third book” should focus entirely on the Indian legal system because there was “no dearth of comical tales” within Indian courtrooms. Justice Kant said the Delhi legal circuit alone had enough material “to fill a library” and jokingly offered to contribute his own stories after retirement, when he would be “less tight-lipped”.
Humour reveals law’s ‘beating heart’
Justice Kant also narrated a series of anecdotes involving legendary members of the Bar and Bench to underline how wit and humour have long coexisted with courtroom seriousness. He recalled exchanges involving CK Daphtary, Fali S Nariman, former Chief Justice M Hidayatullah and former Attorney General G. Ramaswamy, with many of the anecdotes drawing loud laughter from the audience.
Summing up the books, Justice Kant said Mehta had shown that humour inside courtrooms does not diminish the seriousness of law but instead exposes its deeply human side.
“The law isn’t just about orders and objections. It’s also about the human comedy that happens in between,” the CJI said.
“Humour here is not mockery but education. By finding the comedy in the courtroom, Tushar reveals the beating heart beneath the robes and the formalities,” he added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
