Editorial

On the sombre occasion of Gandhiji’s death anniversary on 30th January that recently passed by, I feel an inner compulsion to share with you all – practitioners of law, his way of spiritualization of human life, particularly, professional life. According to Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest mahatmas to become Hutatma we all are born as debtors; we owe lot of things to the society; therefore, we are born again and again to repay these debts to the society; human life is meant for service to the society till that debt is fully repaid by rendering service to the society. As such human life is meant to serve others in a society and not to get service from others. That’s why each one in the society should dedicate one’s self to serve the society throughout his life.

When human life itself is meant for service, it is more so for the professionals, who have voluntarily adopted a service oriented profession – whether it is lawyers or accountants – they are essentially service oriented; the difference between business and profession is essentially the motive of rendering services. For business, profit is the motive. As against that, in profession, rendering service is the motive. Gandhiji in fact, went on to advice that business must also be service oriented and not profit oriented – it appears we clearly misunderstood what the Father of the Nation advised; instead of making business service oriented, we are converting profession into business, by making it profit oriented, profit being the basis for rendering service. This will neither do good to the profession nor to society. Hence on this day, let us decide to make not only our profession but all our activities service oriented so that we reduce the debt we owe to the society to some extent if not repay the whole in this life.

As I have pointed out in this column earlier that the two professions which we are concerned – accountancy and advocacy have to play very important role in the society – accountancy profession has to see to it that accountancy is proper in all activities of society; unfortunately in this country accountability is totally missing; whether it is political or social or economic field – there is total absence of accountability. Accounting profession must realize this and try its best to bring accountability to every sphere of society. As far as lawyers are concerned, they too play a very important role in society. This profession has to oversee that there is justice in all walks of social life. It's not just one client’s case but every where in society that justice has to prevail; here too all of you would agree that lawyer’s profession has failed miserably because we see injustice in all walks of life. As such as professionals of these two fields, we are to hold ourselves accountable for not playing the role that is expected of us. I once again request these two professions to realize the important role that they have to play in the society and dedicate themselves afresh to play the role of the professionals which we are supposed to play – of bringing accountability and justice to all spheres of life.

This issue covers an important topic of association of persons and body of individuals – the whole issue was designed and executed by Sri Vipin Batavia, the Chairman of the Journal Committee and Dr. P.P. Shah who has contributed earlier many valuable articles to our as well as other journals. I sincerely thank both of them for the service they have rendered. The other authors who have contributed to this issue have shown in-depth of the knowledge as regards the issues that they tackled. I sincerely thank and be grateful to all of them.