The Hon’ble Bombay High Court had asked around three scenes to be deleted from the recently released movie, “Jolly LLB 2” as those scenes misrepresented the judiciary. Besides this movie in particular, I can assure you that almost every Bollywood movie and also the mainstream media have shown the judiciary in a wrong light and created a wrong image in the citizens’ minds.
What is the harm in that, right? After all, aren’t movies meant for entertainment? Yes, they are, but not at the cost of maligning the image of an important democratic organisation. Following are a few points that the Bollywood movies never tell you about the judiciary.
- You need good marks to get into a good law college – Earlier there was a notion in our society that only those who did not get admission in any other colleges opt for law. This is entirely false. To get into a good law college, the marks required are equal to those that you would need for admission into an engineering or a medical colleges.
- The number of books that we actually read in colleges – Many a times we have to read as many as three authors for one particular section or a topic because the interpretation of all the three authors are different and it is important for us to know the maximum situations in which a particular section may be applied.
- Giving up on quality family time and luxurious lunches – After graduating in Law, when our friends from other streams are enjoying the luxuries of a hefty pay cheque and relaxing with their families, we are struggling to establish ourselves. If our reputation is spoiled, we stand at a risk of losing our profession. The years between 25-35 years of age, are very crucial in our career as well as family life. Sometimes, even lunch is a luxury for us because that means we are away from our work.
- The fees – Even if lawyers give you a solution in five minutes, there is hard-work worth years involved to be able to come to that conclusion. It is strange yet funny, how sometimes, clients refused to pay us because we ask them not to file a case (for their own welfare). We are not extorting you. We are charging you for our services.
- The procedure and result – The courts do not function as shown in the movies. Clients giving us important documents at the last minute only adds to the hassle and complicates matters. It only looks good in movies, where the protagonist enters in the last minute and shows a vital piece of evidence. In real life, the judge may not even consider this kind of drama. We have as little as a few minutes, sometimes, even seconds to convince the judge about our point. The filmy drama doesn’t happen in real courtrooms.
- Not all lawyers are liars – Stop being prejudiced against a profession. Every profession has good and bad people. Not all lawyers lie, many a times the clients give us wrong instructions and mislead us.
If a lawyer was given a glass of water and was asked to write about the contents of the same, they could write any of the following:
- The glass is filled with plain water.
- The glass has H2O.
- The glass is filled with H20 along with various gases.
- The glass is filled with a liquid compound constituting two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen.
In none, of the above statements there is a lie. It is just a matter of interpretation.