Ram Jethmalani, twice Law Minister, criminal lawyer, jurist, teacher, litigant and parliamentarian who relished the epithet ‘unchanged and unrepentant maverick’, passed away at 95 on September 8 .
Mr. Jethmalani remains an enigma in modern times as he was a man who spoke and acted out of personal conviction.
“I do not claim to be infallible but even my most trenchant critics would not deny that I speak and act out of personal conviction. I write also to stir debate and have the humility to retract my views when bested in such debates,” he wrote in
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He argued his first brief in the court of Sindh at the age of 17. A refugee himself, he had moved the Bombay High Court for the humane treatment of refugees in India.
He recounted that his days in an Indian refugee camp made him believe that “India and Pakistan must forget the tribulations of the tragic Partition and develop a relationship of trust and cooperation. I have ceaselessly striven to achieve this throughout my political career”.
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He took every opportunity to chastise judges and bring them down to the earth. An onlooker often felt he relished the moment when he would drive in the fact that they had not even started their legal careers when he was already a senior lawyer.
Once, while arguing well after normal court hours his petition to bring back black money, Mr. Jethmalani noticed the judges sneak a peek at the clock. He promptly addressed the then Chief Justice of India, saying “You tired? Your Lordships are half my age”.
Letter to Karnan
His admonishing letter to a truant Madras High Court judge, C.S. Karnan, who was facing contempt of court — the first in history by a sitting High Court judge — for misconduct, is an example of how he felt the dignity of an institution cannot be overawed by the idiosyncrasies of one man.
In the letter, Mr. Jethamalani told Mr. Karnan that he was writing as a “senior member of the Bar and living in the departure lounge of God’s airport”. He advised Mr. Karnan to apologise to the Supreme Court. He signed off with “if you do not know the enormity of your madness do meet me and I might put some sense in your head”.
He sought to protect the judiciary as much as he admonished it. He did not falter to call the National Judicial Appointments Commission, which gave primacy to the government in judicial appointments to constitutional courts, an “evil absurdity”.
When faced with barbs about his role as a defence lawyer for the powerful, Mr. Jethmalani stoically replied that he was serving the law as an officer of the court. The law allowed an accused to put forward his best defence. It was up to the courts to declare a person guilty.
He defended the likes of Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh, underworld don Haji Mastan, the killers of former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, BJP veteran L.K. Advani in the hawala scandal and headed Manu Sharma’s defence in the Jessica Lal murder case.
Against death penalty
In his speeches, he was an advocate against death penalty. “A man should not pass irrevocable sentences,” he reasoned.
He acknowledged that the life of an elitist lawyer on the fast lane and a politician was a “misfitting” one.
“My ability to marry a successful legal practice with an almost uninterrupted parliamentary career of 35 years has been because the politics of that period consisted of a battle between feudal forces wedded to a dynastic cult and the forces of Constitutional liberalism,” he explained in his book.
Battling corruption
He retired from law in 2017, announcing that he would continue to battle corruption in political life. In his writings, he expounded that education and not religion is the right pill for India.
Mr. Jethmalani wrote that India’s progress did not require more mosques and temples.
“Controversies like a Ram temple in Ayodhya on the site of the Babri mosque must be totally outlawed. Instead, at the disputed site, a university of secular education and religious harmony should be established. It is a pity that we pride ourselves on being secular without giving such education to our youth,” he wrote.
He believed that in “a civilised democracy, bad speech cannot be allowed to be conquered by the sword or the bomb. It must be neutralised by better speech”.