Judicial history is traditionally recorded as a progression of legal precedents, viewed from an impersonal sombre lens and discussed with a large measure of solemnity. What is often ignored in such conventional scholarly exercises is the human side of those who administer justice.

Tushar Mehta's The Lawful and the Awful breaks this tradition, focusing on moments from courts across the world where the solemnity of law gave way to the unexpected.

In his new book, the Solicitor General of India refrains from the usual pedantic recital of legal statutes and critiques of judgments. Instead, he offers a study of the human element of law, populated as it is by judges with their own quirks, eccentricities and personal failings.

The book is prefaced with a declaration from Mehta that it "punctures the pomposity, intellectual arrogance and scholarly hypocrisy that often afflict the legal profession".

He also candidly admits that he has consciously avoided discussing Indian courts in the interest of professional self-preservation.

But this also enables Mehta to simultaneously offer a spectator's detached view of justice administration with the acerbic wit that only an insider with years of experience practicing before the highest courts of law can offer.

The opening lines of the first chapter is akin to Sir David Attenborough's narration of nature documentaries.

Mehta frames courtrooms as ecosystems with unique topographical features identifying the Bench, inhabited by the "adaptable and hardy species" of judges, who are expected to perform a variety of socially beneficial functions, including the delivery of justice. The ecosystem is also populated by another species - lawyers - who Mehta acknowledges in good humour can become "pests" if not for the regulatory watch of judges.

With time, however, the law has moved outside the conventional courtrooms, especially in times of necessity, putting to question the historic geographic sanctity of the certo loco (a certain place).

In the first chapter, Mehta traces the evolution of the physical courtroom from the rigid interpretations of the Magna Carta to modern virtual hearings. He speaks of historical outliers, such as Sir Lancelot Shadwell granting an injunction while bathing in the River Thames, Justice Ray Bean conducting hearings from a tavern, or Justice Valerie Pearlman conducting possibly the first virtual hearing from a hospital bed via video link in 1999.

Mehta raises a lighter point too - this might be the first generation of lawyers to discharge their duties not "on their legs" but comfortably seated and occasionally reclining.

From evolving courtrooms, Mehta moves on to an exploration of the eccentricities of judges, often merely humorous but occasionally amounting to judicial misconduct.

One of the most interesting cases cited is that of Judge Floro in the Philippines, who bizarrely admitted to consulting with three invisible dwarves. At the time, every candidate for judgeship was required to undergo a psychological evaluation conducted by the Philippines Supreme Court’s clinical services. Even though he failed the evaluation twice, Judge Floro nevertheless secured a position on the Bench, leading to a most bizarre series of events.

Mehta uses this example to highlight that unlike the Philippines, most countries do not subject prospective judges to clinical psychological assessments, leaving the Bar and litigants to "diagnose and endure" these symptoms themselves. As an insider, Mehta also reveals that every lawyer has a private list of "weird and freakish" judges.

Two chapters, each dedicated to a former judge of the US Supreme Court, are perhaps the most revelatory of Mehta's own views of what a judge's role ought to be.

One of these chapters is dedicated to Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative judges to occupy the Bench of the US Supreme Court in the recent past. Mehta portrays the American judge as a brilliant, bold and uncompromising intellectual giant who "wielded sarcasm sharpened to judicial precision".

The Solicitor General's analysis of Scalia is perhaps the book's most significant contribution to constitutional discourse. Mehta frames Justice Scalia's originalist view of the Constitution as a necessary check on judicial activism. He also applauds the judge's disdain for unelected judges attempting to remake society according to their personal beliefs.

Mehta delves into Justices Scalia’s dissents in landmark cases like Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws effectively decriminalising homosexuality, and in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalised same-sex marriage.

Mehta, who himself appeared in the corresponding cases of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India and Supriyo @ Supriya Chakraborty & Anr. vs. Union of India, says that Justice Scalia represented a rare judicial conscience which gave voice to the "silent majority".

Using Justice Scalia's judicial record, Mehta cautions against letting constitutional morality become a tool for judicial populism and letting Harvard's influence shape jurisprudence. It is only in this chapter that Mehta makes an unnamed yet unmistakable mention of Indian jurisprudence. In just one sentence, Mehta says that courts seem to be under the illusion that the restriction against altering the Constitution's basic structure applies only to the legislature, not to the judiciary.

In stark contrast, and perhaps as a counterbalance, the other chapter is dedicated to Justice James Clark McReynolds, whom Mehta describes as a most rotten judge with a despicable character.

Mehta records Justice McReynolds' overt anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny, and forces the reader to confront the uneasy truth that the "scales of justice are always held by hands, not angels".

The rest of the book offers an eventful foray into the art of judgment writing, covering the understated humour of British judges, judges who fancy themselves as poets, pop culture references in otherwise mundane judgments and even an occasion of a judge including a secret code in a case concerning Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

Mehta also illustrates how wit serves as a forensic weapon and equaliser between the Bar and the Bench, simultaneously cautioning against cracking jokes, however clever, at the expense of litigants.

While he critiques extravagant and flowery writing as being reflective of a lack of clarity on actual legal principles, he applauds the art of a catchy opening. According to Mehta, the latter makes the law accessible without sacrificing seriousness.

And that sentiment is exactly reflective of the general moral of Mehta's book - that the law is at its most fascinating when it momentarily forgets to be solemn and serious.