In the high drama of legal warfare, an elaborate seven-page “Last and Final Cease and Desist Notice” often attempts to intimidate and overwhelm. But what happens when such a verbose barrage from Edelweiss Group’s lawyers is met not with fear, but with indifference?
This is the tale of a legal shadow play — long on thunder, short on substance — answered with nothing more than a Shakespearean shrug. In his reply, journalist Kanwar Manjit Singh unmasks the hollow roar, reminding us that in law and in life, shadows bind no man.
Read on for the full rejoinder — a rare blend of literary flourish, legal clarity, and cutting wit — that exposes the pomp and bluster behind a hollow threat. 
———
To:
ASG & Partners
Through: Mr. Aniket Gautam, Advocate
Subject: The Grandiloquent Nullity of Your So Called “Last and Final Cease and Desist Notice” dated 19.09.2025
Gentleman Gautam,
What fluttered into my post on 19 September 2025 was a parchment of ponderous pretensions, extravagantly christened a “Last and Final Cease and Desist Notice,” whose prolixity I confess I have not troubled myself to penetrate beyond the subject line.
Nor shall I, until the most elementary requirement of civilised legal discourse is satisfied — namely, the production of unimpeachable authorisation from Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited empowering you to address me at all.
Until such warrant is furnished, your letter subsists, at best, as an unauthorised billet doux of bluster — rhetorically vigorous perhaps, but juridically vapid.
THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION OF AUTHORITY
You purport to speak in the august name of Edelweiss ARC. Yet you have furnished neither vakalatnama, nor board resolution, nor power of attorney, nor any instrument of lawful delegation to demonstrate that you are accredited to issue this communication.
This omission is not a casual oversight; it is a cavernous void. As Justice Joseph Story observed in his Commentaries on the Law of Agency, “Agency without authority is but shadow, and shadow binds no man.” Shadows, however theatrically flourished, acquire no binding legal gravitas; the law admits only substance.
So too the maxim quod non apparet non est governs inexorably: what is not proved does not exist. Absent proof, therefore, your prolixity is not an act in law but an exhibition of vanity, no matter how draped in forensic verbiage.
THE PARADOX OF THE LEVIATHAN
Edelweiss ARC, a financial colossus girdled with legions of in house solicitors, compliance custodians, and corporate secretaries, is no destitute suitor in need of a borrowed pen. Why then must such a leviathan farm out so elementary a function as penning a notice — and that too without equipping its emissary with the fundamental vesture of mandate?
The spectacle recalls Emerson’s mordant aphorism: “The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.” Verily, the louder your letter proclaims itself “Last and Final,” the more it betrays its absence of primal legitimacy.
VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL
William Shakespeare, with unerring thrift, encapsulated such enterprises: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Devoid of command, your seven paged declaration is precisely that — resonant in syllables, barren in sanctity.
Jonathan Swift, too, would have smiled: “A solemn heap of words, without the least tincture of meaning.”
And Pope would have nodded in weary recognition: “Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”
Permit me, in Bardic vein, to adapt: “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” So too, words without mandate never to jurisdiction travel.
LAW AND BEHOLD
The Supreme Court of India has iterated ad nauseam that no counsel may address a forum — still less disseminate binding missives — absent explicit authorisation. Authority is never a matter for presumption; it must be concretely evidenced. Anything else is but illegality masquerading in borrowed robes.
Thus, the ancient maxim resounds: ex nihilo nihil fit — out of nothing, nothing arises. From an unauthorised notice emerges no duty, no compulsion, and no response, save this rejoinder itself.
MINE GRANDESQUE STAND
Permit me to articulate, with due pomp, my definitive position:
• I shall not deign to read beyond your subject line.
• I shall not traverse, dissect, or dignify any of the allegations you parade in your seven folios of futility.
• I shall not expend further drop of ink or scintilla of thought upon forensic pantomimes deficient in mandate.
Hence: I refuse enlistment in your masquerade of shadows, for shadows, whether verbose or vacuous, bind no man.
EPILOGUE: FUTILITY OF YOUR FOLIOS
Let us descend, then, into epilogue. Length is no surrogate for legitimacy. Your seven folios resound like cymbals without melody — clamorous, yet empty.
As the ancients warn: ex nihilo nihil fit. From your nullity stems only nullity. From your shadow, no substance. From your proclamation, no compulsion.
Thus, I inscribe your epitaph in juridical marble: Your “Last and Final” is, in fact, but “First and Futile.”
And until you come clothed with unimpeachable mandate, all your words remain what both Shakespeare and the law would jointly condemn: shadows signifying nothing — and shadows, as every schoolboy knows, bind no man.
NOTICE IS DISMISSED
By virtue of the foregoing, and in the complete absence of any rudimentary and unimpeachable warrant of authority, this so called “Last and Final Cease and Desist Notice” is hereby, with emphatic and irrevocable finality, pronounced a juridical nullity.
ORDER: The Notice is dismissed — hammer, hammer, hammer! — with the relentless finality of a gavel crashing down upon gravel, and with exemplary costs exacted not in rupees but in wasted ink, squandered imagination, and the endless chuckles of the observing public.
So, pronounced. So, recorded. So consigned, forever, to the dustbin of legal farce.
Yours, with due courtesy, icy disdain, and a tincture of amused resignation,
kanwar manjit singh
________
Also Read:
Silencing Journalism: Pressure Tactics and Law
Team PT
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