One morning, when everybody had almost seated in the royal court of Akbar, an oil merchant entered and bowed down before the Emperor. He said, “Your majesty, I need your help. A villager is trying to steal my money.” Akbar asked the merchant, “Who is the villager? Bring him before me and I will listen to his story too.”
The next morning, the oil merchant appeared with the villager whom he had blamed for stealing his money. He said, “Your majesty, this is the villager who tried to steal my money.” The villager said, “Jahapannah! The man is lying. The money is mine.” The merchant said, “No, he is lying. The other day, this man had bought oil from me. At first, he gave me a bag of money, but then he tried to steal it from me.”
The villager said, “I never visited his shop. Then how can I steal the bag from him.” So, both of them kept on arguing for a long time. Both Akbar and Birbal listened to each and every argument to reach a conclusion. But it seemed never-ending. Then, Birbal shouted at them to be silent and said to the villager, “I want you to give me the bag of money.” Then, he looked at a servant and ordered him to bring a bowl of water.
When he had both the things, he put the coins in the water bowl. Then, he saw that oil on the coins had come onto the surface of water. Birbal said, “The owner of this money bag is the oil merchant.
Since this villager has claimed that he has never visited the oil shop, then this money belongs to this man.”
Everyone in the court applauded Birbal’s judgement. Then, another man entered who seemed very sad. He said, “Your majesty, my neighbour who doesn’t like me has lodged a complaint against me in the court. He said that I have stolen a necklace from his house. And when I summoned in the court, the judge asked me to hold a hot iron rod tomorrow. He said that God would save me from getting burns if I was innocent. Please help me. I am innocent.”
Birbal said, “Don’t worry, my friend. Just do as I say. When the judge asks you to hold the hot iron rod, ask him to test your neighbour the same way. Make him hold the rod too. The rest will be done for you.” The next day when the judge asked the innocent man to hold the hot iron rod, he pleaded the judge to make his neighbour go through the same test. The judge fortunately agreed. However, the other man who was lying instantly said that maybe the necklace wasn’t stolen and he would check it at home again.
This was how Birbal saved the innocent man from being unjustly served.
