Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 4th September 1909 — No.11
Facts and Comments
The Kaul Judgment
The Kaul Boycott case which has attracted some comment in the Press is one which ought to be drawn more prominently into public notice.
The Settlement Patwary of Kaul together with four leading Banias, two Zamindars and a Brahmin of the place were charged by the police with having held a Boycott meeting which endangered the peace of the town.
It is alleged that they agreed to impose a penalty upon all persons using foreign sugar after a certain date and a heavier fine on anyone importing the commodity.
It does not appear that there was any complaint from a single person in the neighbourhood as to any such meeting being held, still less to their being inconvenienced or stopped in their avocations by any action or threatened action on the part of the defendants.
But on the ipse dixit of the complaining constable the defendants were found guilty and bound over to keep the peace.
The defendants themselves denied the meeting and alleged that they took no part in politics and were guiltless of any religious objection to foreign sugar.
In itself the case appears to be a judicial vagary of the worst kind.
But the remarkable pronouncements of the Sub-divisional Officer of Kaithal on the juristic aspects of the case make it of more than local importance.
Mr. Garett in his judgment starts a very surprising metaphysical argument by drawing a nice distinction between illegal, non-legal and wrongful acts.
Illegal acts are those against which the law provides a penalty either by criminal or civil action.
Non-legal acts are those which are contrary to public policy but are left to social opinion to discourage.
Wrongful acts, according to Mr. Garett, are those which, being neither illegal nor non-legal, are yet abhorrent to the moral sense of men of reason.
We do not know if this remarkable definition of wrongful acts will be supported by lawyers.
But Mr. Garett farther improves on these distinctions by assevering on the strength of an Irish judgment that a perfectly legal action becomes illegal when it is done by many persons in combination, provided anyone can show that his interests as an individual or as one of a class are aimed at or necessarily injured.
In order that we may not be accused of misrepresenting the learned Sub-divisional Officer we quote the words of the judgment.
“Without quoting chapter, verse and date I call to mind the judgment of the late Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, I believe, Baron Rolleston, in what is known as the Baker's Case.
In that case it was held that the baker had a cause of action against the farmers of the village in which he established a bakery because they combined to boycott his bakery by each establishing a kitchen for the preparation of the bread for themselves and their servants, their motive being simply a difference on political grounds.
The Irish farmers did not go so far as the defendants are said to have gone in this case, and they in nowise interfered with the baker personally.
The illegality of their action consisted in their combining to do an act which if done separately would have been legal.
The learned Judge observed to the effect that whereas a single man may be left to work out his own salvation when opposed by an individual, he could claim protection from a combination.
In that case there were no proposals to inflict fines or outcaste, yet the act was held illegal.
It is very certain therefore that an act which in violence far outstrips that, is, if not illegal, at least wrongful.”