Report No. 75

19. Importance of maintaining high professional standards.-

We believe that we have taken into account all considerations relevant to the question referred to us. What we have said is not intended to detract from the importance of maintaining high ethical standards in the legal profession-or, for that matter, in any other learned profession. Indian tradition expects men and women to discharge their duty to the best of their ability in the field of life which they have chosen for themselves. In the Mahabharata, a lofty ethical passion flavours the definition of 'dharma' given by the merchant Tuladhara to the ascetic Jajali1:-

Sarvesam yah suhrt nityarn sarvesam ca hite ratah; Karmana manasa vaca sa dharmam veda Jajale-

'He knows dharma, 0 Jajali, who is always the friend of all, and who, through his actions, thought and speech, is absorbed in (ensuring) the welfare of all'.

1. Mahabharata Santi Parva, 254.9 (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Edition), quoted by Swami Ranganathananda Eternal Values in a Changing Society, (1971), p. 537.