1. In Brooms Legal Maxims, Tenth Edition, Indian Economy Reprint 1995, the following passages occur at pages 90, 91 and 120, respectively : "It has been an ancient observation in the laws of England, that, whenever a standing rule of law, of which the reason, perhaps, could not be remembered or discerned, has been wantonly broken in upon by statutes or new resolutions, the wisdom of the rule has in the end appeared from the inconveniences that have followed the innovation (o); and the sages of the law have, therefore, always suppressed new and subtle inventions in derogation of the common law (p). It is, then, an established rule to abide by former precedents, stare decisis, where the same points come again in litigation, as well to keep the scale of justice steady and not liable to waver with every new Judges opinion, as also because, the law in that case being solemnly declared, what before was uncertain and perhaps Indifferent, is now become a permanent rule, which it is not in the breast of any subsequent Judge to alter according to his private sentiments; he being sworn to determine, not according to his own private judgment (q), but according to the known laws of the