Legal Maxims

By Vijay Kumar

”nemo firut repente turpissimus“ - no one becomes dishonest all of a sudden

The maxim ”nemo firut repente turpissimus“ (no one becomes dishonest all of a sudden) is not unexceptional but still it is a salutary guideline to judge human conduct, particularly in the field of administrative law. The authorities should not keep their eyes totally closed towards the overall estimation in which the delinquent officer was held in the recent past by those who were supervising him earlier. To dunk an officer into the puddle of ”doubtful integrity", it is not enough that the doubt fringes on a mere hunch. That doubt should be of such a nature as would reasonably and consciously be entertainable by a reasonable man on the given material. Mere possibility is hardly sufficient to assume that it would have happened. Supreme Court in M.S. Bindra v. Union of India & Others [(1998) 7 SCC 310.