Justice Murshed and the reign of conscience
Anwar A. Khan :
In remembrance of Justice Syed Mahbub Murshed’s 115th birth anniversary (11 January 2026), memory returns to us not as nostalgia, but as a summons. It asks whether we still believe — steadfastly and without fear—that law is a moral vocation, not a convenience of power.
For Justice Murshed, the answer was always unequivocal. He lived the creed that judges are servants of the law, not its masters, and that the bench exists to restrain excess, not to sanctify it.
As he once affirmed in judgment — words that continue to resound across South Asia — “It is not the use but the abuse of power that the courts are meant to redress.” In this single sentence lies the architecture of his life’s work.
Born on 11 January 1911 and passing on 3 April 1969, Justice Murshed rose to become Chief Justice of the then East Pakistan High Court (1964–1967). Yet titles scarcely capture his stature.
He was not merely a jurist of uncommon brilliance; he was a sentinel of liberty during an age of intimidation, colonial residue, and military authoritarianism. In an era when obedience was rewarded and conscience punished, he chose courage — again and again.
Justice Murshed understood, with rare clarity, the lived realities of Bengal. Law, to him, was not an imported abstraction but a living instrument that must answer to the people it serves. He believed, as Montesquieu wrote, “There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” Murshed enforced that separation with resolve, even when it meant standing alone.
His reforms shook a complacent Bar awake and modernised the judiciary within a remarkably brief span. Old habits yielded — sometimes unwillingly — to a relentless push for excellence.
Under his stewardship, writ jurisdiction was invigorated, executive overreach curtailed, and fundamental rights given judicial shelter, particularly during the repressive military regime of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. It was through his courage that many Bengali leaders, detained on political grounds, regained their freedom.
Among the many legends that surround him, one moment stands luminous. When
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was granted bail — opposed by the Advocate General on the ground that the Governor would “not like it” — Justice Murshed replied with leonine simplicity: “Tell the Governor I am the law.” In that instant, the judiciary reclaimed its spine, and history found its voice.
Justice Murshed’s commitment to justice was inseparable from his devotion to culture, humanity, and national dignity.
He marched in the Language Movement of 1952, breaking Section 144 alongside Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq, and endured arrest without complaint. He organised the Tagore Centenary across the then East Pakistan despite military hostility, affirming cultural freedom as a pillar of national self-respect. During famine and communal violence, he founded and led humanitarian initiatives, believing — like Mahatma Gandhi — that “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
An orator of rare eloquence, Justice Murshed could hold audiences spellbound, whether speaking extempore or writing with crystalline precision. His intellect ranged far beyond the courtroom. As a young barrister, his 1942 article “Quo Vadis Quaid-e-Azam” shook political complacency.
He helped draft the 21-Point Programme of the Jukta Front, refined Bangabandhu’s Six Points, and chaired historic student conferences calling for autonomy when few dared to do so.
After resigning as Chief Justice in protest, he organised the defence in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, helping secure unconditional freedom for the accused, including
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahan who was accused number one, and strengthening the mass upsurge of 1969.
He was, in the fullest sense, a public conscience. At the 1969 Round Table Conference, with a tottering regime before him, Justice Murshed demanded “one man, one vote.” Its acceptance altered the constitutional arithmetic of Pakistan and paved the democratic road to the 1970 elections — an act whose consequences would echo into the birth of Bangladesh.
Yet for all his grandeur, he remained profoundly human. He loved the Bar with filial devotion.
“The Bar is my professional home,” he once said with quiet tenderness, “even when I am dead, my disembodied soul shall hover around it.” At his farewell from the Bench, he saluted his colleagues simply and nobly: “I salute you—you who were my erstwhile comrades, the members of the Bar.”
Justice Murshed’s life traced the arc of South Asia’s modern history — from the twilight of colonialism to the dawn of Bangladesh. He preached, warned, counselled, and corrected — not out of vanity, but out of duty. Emotional display was foreign to him; yet his actions were suffused with moral passion. He seemed, to many, almost beyond mortality — so enduring was his presence, so firm his principles.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once observed, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” Justice S. M. Murshed embodied that truth. His judgments, cited across Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, remain treatises of courage and clarity. His example reminds us that to be just is not merely to interpret law, but to defend its soul.
In life and in death, he was—as he himself once said of Sher-e-Bangla — “a king without the trappings of a monarch, for he had built an empire in the hearts of his fellowmen.” He did all that he set out to do, yet remained humbly unsatisfied, always reaching toward a higher standard.
“There is no virtue,” wrote Addison, “so truly great and godlike as justice.” To be perfectly just may belong to the divine; to strive for justice to the utmost of one’s ability is the glory of humankind. Justice S. M. Murshed was that glory made manifest.
As we mark the 115th birthday of Justice S. M. Murshed tomorrow (11 January 2026), we do more than remember a man — we reaffirm a promise. With liberty and justice for all is not a slogan; it is a charge. May his legacy continue to instruct our courts, stiffen our spines, and steady our national conscience for generations yet to come.
(The writer is a freedom fighter, independent thinker and writer on political affairs, past and present).