SUBMITTED BY-Philip Oommen

SUBMITTED TO-Mr. Sachin Sharma

LITERARY CONTEXT
 Tool of Interpretation

 Emerged from the works of Roman Jacobson, Boris

Eichenbaum, and Viktor Shklovsky

 Seeks meaning of a work through the literary devices

 Ignores the historical, cultural, political backgrounds

LEGAL CONTEXT
 A set of precedents/laws should be developed

 Judges should compulsorily follow these set of rules

 Judges should not be allowed to perform otherwise

 Langdell-Every problem has one solution

 Depended on syllogism

 Problem-Lewis Carol’s example of achilles and tortoise

 CHALLENGES TO FORMALISM
 Dworkin- Formalists ignored the importance of principles

 Rules are either all powerful or negligible(never conflicting)

 Principles can be applied everywhere

 Riggs v. Palmer(2 principles collided)

 Judge’s conscience necessary to analyse principles

CONTD.
 Dissenting judgment is important as the minority one

 Minority judgments should be dealt with an open mind

 Important dissenters are-

1. Justice Fazl Ali in A.K Gopalan v. State of Madras

2. Justice P N Bhagwati in S.P Gupta v. UOI

3. Indu Malhotra in Indian Young Lawyer Assn. case

SABARIMALA DISSENT
 Lord Ayyappan was himself a Naishtika Bramhachari

 According to Legends, Lord himself set the rules

 Basic purpose was to stop the women of the sexual ages

 She also questioned petitioner’s relation to the case

 Why worship him, if cannot respect his rules?

 Should the court impose its morality on religions?

CONCLUSION
 Ever evolving nature of Judiciary shall be lost

 Judges should act according to social changes

 If precedents are followed blindly, rule of law shall be

damaged(Eg.- Violation of judgment in Kerala)
 Other methods can be adopted to avoid Judge’s bias

 Cons of formalism outweigh the pros

 Flexible judiciary needed, rigidity should be avoided

THANK YOU