[1] After his departure from the Court, Cornelius remained influential and was a symbol of the protection of the rights of minorities and freedom of religious practices, whilst serving as the legal adviser to successive governments on judicial matters.

[1] Alvin Robert Cornelius was born on 8 May 1903, in Agra, United Provinces of the British Indian Empire, to a Christian Anglo-Indian Urdu-speaking family.

[2] Cornelius joined the law faculty of the university, working there as a research associate, and won the government scholarship to pursue further education abroad.

[2] The same year, Cornelius went to the United Kingdom for his higher education and was admitted at Cambridge University, attending the Selwyn College to study law.

[2] After reluctantly returning to India, Cornelius took the entrance exam and was commissioned as an officer at the Indian Civil Service, joining the Department of Law of the Government of Punjab.

His activism grew strong and deeper after accepting a legal position in the Punjab government, where he would go on to establish the court system of the newly created country.

In 1954, the National Assembly of Pakistan tried to change the constitution to establish checks on the Governor-General's powers, to prevent a repeat of what had happened to Nazimuddin's government.

Therefore, it is often seen as a matter of surprise that the same judge, after being promoted as the Chief Justice of Pakistan, upheld the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by Governor-General Malik Ghulam Muhammad soon thereafter.

That it was left to a Christian to present the case of Islam at the highest ladder of jurisprudence in the formative phase of the Pakistan would be regarded by some as a paradox, and by others as corroboration of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's dream.

Alvin Robert Cornelius was a relentless defender of Sharia, and arguably played the most important role in inculcating some Islamic values in the legal institutions of Pakistan.

In 1954, when the bench headed by Chief Justice Munir upheld the decision of the Governor-General to dissolve the constituent assembly, Cornelius was the only judge to write a note of dissent.

Four years later, when the same court upheld the case of Dosso against the martial law authorities, Cornelius wrote a concurrent judgment (i.e. he agreed with the decision but felt the need to explain himself separately).

In 'Crime and Punishment of Crime', the paper which he read at an international conference in Sydney in August 1965, he mentioned several cases to indicate "the extent to which the law supports the indigenous disciplines operating in our society, through the authority of the elders."

"It grows out of social condition and is not to be contained without the most careful examination of its etiology… In that process, it would be well not to reject, out of hand as being out-dated, the principles and techniques laid down and applied by the ancients, for dealing with the problem in their times.