New Delhi: Senior advocate Chander M. Lall has a story to tell—of his grandfather Inder Mohan Lall who took on the British Crown after he was dismissed from service and emerged a winner. Retired and serving Supreme Court judges, senior bureaucrats and lawyers gathered at the Delhi High Court’s new auditorium on 6 February for the launch of his anticipated book, At The Pleasure of His Majesty: I.M. Lall and The Case that Shook the Crown.
More than a book launch, it was also a show of his soft power in the corridors of New Delhi’s courts. Supreme Court judges Hima Kohli and Sanjay Karol, acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Justice Manmohan, former Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kaul, and former Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant joined the author and NewsX Managing Director Rishabh Gulati to discuss the book.
The landmark case fought by IM Lall helped define service law for Indian bureaucrats and shape Article 311 of the Constitution of India, which protects civil servants from being dismissed or demoted without just cause.
“Indian bureaucracy owes a lot to him [IM Lall],” said Kant. “Young officers who go into states face all kinds of challenges, and Article 311 empowers us to make the right decision even in the face of pressure.”
Growing up on his father’s stories, Lall always wanted to work on the book, but he could never get the time to immerse himself in the project.
“My father was a great storyteller and ignited my interest in writing this book. I am sad that he passed away before it could be published,” said Lall.
After getting his law degree, IM Lall joined the British Indian Army, fought during WWI, and finally joined the Indian civil service. His legal battle with the Crown was one of a kind, according to Justice Kohli.
“It’s perhaps the only case where a civil servant challenged the crown, and got reinstated through the judiciary.”
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Flesh & blood of natural justice
IM Lall was dismissed from Indian Civil Services in 1940 over charges of nepotism (Lall had hired his wife’s nephew as a clerk), but he wasn’t given a fair chance to argue his case. In his book, Chander Lall details that the dismissal was partly motivated by his grandfather’s support of archaeologist Nicholas Roerich, who championed the preservation of cultural heritage. IM Lall and Roerich met in Takht-i-Bahi, an archaeological site in today’s Pakistan, and shared ideas about the preservation of Gandhara statues. While they wanted the statues to remain in India, the British Raj had other ideas, Lall writes in his book. And that is why the British Raj didn’t see Lall favourably any longer.
When the case went up to the Privy Council, the court held that IM Lall’s discharge was wrong and that he should be reinstated to the Indian Civil Services.
Justice Manmohan noted that the case has given “flesh and blood” to the principles of natural justice in the Constitution. “This is a case which helped the evolution of law. Fighting the Crown while being subservient to the crown requires a lot of courage,” he said.
This judgment resulted in the creation of Article 311 of the Constitution, which states that no civil servant can be dismissed by any authority subordinate to the one by which they were appointed. It also mandates that dismissal or reduction in rank should take place only after the officer has been given a chance to defend himself, and after a fair inquiry has been conducted.
Pain of Partition
Lall’s book goes beyond the landmark case—it’s a tale of courage and sacrifice and the trauma of Partition. Lall traces his ancestry to Mianwala, a village near Lahore. Right when his grandfather IM Lall was dispatched to London to fight his case at the Privy Council, Partition was declared and his family was caught in the middle of it. He lost his youngest daughter to appendicitis, as she couldn’t get the necessary treatment.
In 1948, IM Lall won the case but it came at a hefty cost. “My grandfather returned to a lost job, a lost child, and a broken house. The victory cost the family a lot,” said Chander Lall.
Justice Kohli could relate to the book through her father’s stories of Partition. Her father was also in Lahore at the time of Independence, and the city’s fate was a topic of intense discussion. People thought the city would become part of India. “Our parents took a traumatic journey, their experiences and stories have left a deep imprint on all of us,” said Justice Kohli.
The pain of Partition was an overarching theme of the event. Chairperson of the Partition Museum, Kishwar Desai, revealed that there is a gallery in the museum dedicated to the story of IM Lall.
Hiswas also celebrated by residents of Gurugram’s Mianwali Colony, which is home to refugees. They felicitated the author with a turban and a shawl.
The one resounding review that the book got from the judges and the audience was its potential to be adapted into a movie or television show.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)