THE LAWFUL AND THE AWFUL Quirky Tales from the World of Law by Tushar Mehta

The citadel of Justice is solemn and serious by design.But the booklooks beyond that facade,bringing together a series of intriguing and surprising episodes that will appeal not only to lawyers and judges,but to non-legal readers as well.

In The Lawful and the Awful,Tushar Mehta takes the reader into the lesser-knowncorners of the legal world,where personality presses against principle and the law reveals a side of itself rarely seen.

Drawing on real cases fromcourts across the world,thesepages recount judges who brandished loaded pistols inside  court-rooms,penned poetry instead of judgments, or pronounced sentences from improbable places;  the sharp wit and wisdom of the inimitable Justices Scalia; and memorable instances of the British art of courtroom humour.

Written with wit,measured sarcasm,and the practised eye of a courtroom insider,these essays do not seek either to scandalize or to sermonize.The simply remind usthat the citadel of justice is not always as solemnas it appears-and that the line between what is lawful and what is aawful can someties be thinner than we might like to believe.This blurring of the line is what makes the law all the morre interesting and facscinating .