legal fables

i love caselaw.

like rahimtoola v/s nizam of hyderabad.
its one of those quaint cases tht has history trapped in it.
it was a case slapped by the nizam of hyderabad against the pakistani high commissioner in london (rahimtoola) in 1948 (just after partition, to be noting).
the nizam was claiming back his funds-illegally transferred by rahim boy from a brit bank to himself (and thus the pakistani state.).

until i read this, i had no idea the pakis cheated the nizam out of his money.
i always thought the nizam was pro-pak and wanted a little piece of pakistan where hyderabad stands today.

at least that was the rumour in my history class...

...and then theres hyde v/s hyde..
the brits at their tight-upper-lipped best.

they declare, in the best traditions of pluralism, that their courts will recognise only "christian marriages".
what are "christian marriages"?
nothing to do with the pretty white gown or the solemn priest.

a christian marriage is any marriage thats:

- a voluntary union (out go the arranged fixes)
- for life (out go celeb unions)
- of one man and one woman (gay rts be damned)
- to the exclusion of all others (dharam and hema, listen up y'all)


so i have a simple question. whats so exclusively 'christian' abt it?
the natives have 'christian' weddings too.
why religious-ize it?
you guys just out to confuse the common public with jargon, aren't you'll?

but the case i like best of all is this:

when war broke out btw the israelites and the arabs in 1948, the arab bank had some cash stashed in the british barclays bank's jerusalem branch.
(not in their dreams did they imagine tht which side of jerusalem would become such a crucial question.
as it turns out, the branch was in, what came to be, the israeli side of jerusalem.)

now smart jews started requisitioning 'unclaimed' funds from banks in their side of the territory.
succeed.
arab money gone.
they're furious. how to recover?

so arab bank sues barclays in an english court for parting with their funds.
(they're able to do this because barclays is a brit bank.)

now tricky situation for the court.
on one hand, it knows that barclays had no choice but to comply with the israeli executive order. on the other, the money was clearly the arabs' and they have a rt to claim it back from the bank.
what to do??

so smart judge pops a mentos and gets to work...
arabs' right to money is recognised...but they can claim it only from the jerusalem branch in which it was deposited and not from any other branch of the same bank...

:)

bugger knows full well tht the branch is in the israeli side of jerusalem and the arabs never going to get their hands there.

this is called brilliance. *clapping tape plays for ten seconds and then fades out*

in one sweep, acknowledges tht arabs deserve to recover money, but saves poor barclays from paying it...

khopdi, na?

this is why i love caselaw.

fab stories, randomly scattered in the garb of legal jargon..