New Delhi: Around 2013-14, a sign was put up on the main gate of senior advocate Ram Jethmalani’s Akbar Road residence in Delhi. The sign informed all and sundry: “Mr Ram Jethmalani has stopped accepting fresh briefs.”
However, till about four years ago, before his health deteriorated, the eminent lawyer remained busy with his legal practice. He remained among the highest paid lawyers till he was appearing in court.
“What can I do? People get sifarish (recommendations) from my friends and I can’t refuse them,” he told some journalists at a book launch at his residence a few years ago.
Little patience for mediocrity
A maverick lawyer, Jethlamani was way ahead of even the judges in matters pertaining to criminal jurisprudence. And one thing that he often publicly disdained was the lack of good judges who understood that criminal cases have to be decided on proof and not public outcry.
Jethmalani could be acerbic when criticising poor judgments or court orders.
“I don’t understand this business of satisfying public conscience. Unless you have proof to back your case against an accused, the only option that the court has is to acquit the accused,” he once told this writer at his house.
“Unfortunately, our judges are getting swayed by these foolish TV debates and manufactured outrages. Judges should stop watching TV news.”
That he had little patience for stupidity and mediocrity is best exemplified in this oft-repeated tale about how he ticked off a judge, who was refusing to listen to Jethmalani’s argument, mainly because his understanding of criminal law wasn’t anywhere close to the eminent lawyer’s. “Your honour, why should I suffer if you don’t know your law?” he is said to have told the judge.
Also read: Rafale isn’t Modi’s Bofors scandal — at least not yet
Robin Hood-style lawyer
Jethmalani lived in pre-Partition Sindh, and had to get a special exemption from a court to be allowed to practice law, since he has cleared his Bar exam at just 17 years of age, four years under the minimum limit.
After shifting to Bombay (now Mumbai) after Partition, Jethmalani became famous for his brilliant arguments in the country’s last jury-decided case — that of Navy officer K.M. Nanavati, who was accused of murdering his wife for having an extra-marital affair.
Jethmalani went on to appear for frontline politicians like Amit Shah, L.K. Advani, Lalu Prasad Yadav, J. Jayalalithaa and Arvind Kejriwal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, also used to regularly consult him.
He himself said he also appeared for “smugglers and goondas”. But it was a Robin Hood-style act for him.
“They give me good money, which allows me to appear for free for those who can’t pay. Also, under the Constitution, everybody deserves fair representation in court,” he often said when asked why he used to appear for the likes of Haji Mastan and stock scam-accused Harshad Mehta. He also represented Parliament attack-accused Afzal Guru.
For every case that he took on, Jethmalani refused at least 100. One of his juniors once told this writer: “He charges only 10 per cent of his clients. The rest are pro bono cases. But there are many instances when he refuses to accept the brief even when the client offers a blank cheque.”
Apparently, after the bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993, don Dawood Ibrahim made a phone call to Jethmalani, offering to surrender on two conditions: No death penalty for the don, and for Jethmalani to be his lawyer. Jethmalani refused to accept the brief.
Whenever he had time, Jethmalani would go teach law students, one of the rare senior lawyers to do so. “That is my way of staying young,” he would often say.
Rajiv Gandhi and 10 questions
Bofors would possibly not have become the scam it did if the mercurial Jethmalani had not decided to take matters into his own hands. He began with a self-financed trip to Sweden to conduct an “investigation” into the scandal, and then decided to take on then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi with a vengeance that had probably never been seen in India’s politics until then.
The Indian Express owner Ramnath Goenka gave him space to publicly pose a set of 10 questions daily to Gandhi. It was an ill-kept secret that Jethmalani had help from Gandhi’s enemies within the Congress.
Gandhi reacted by comparing Jethmalani to a dog: “I do not have to reply to every dog that barks.”
This only helped the headline-seeking lawyer, who responded by accepting that he was a “watchdog” and that “watchdogs only bark at thieves”.
Jethmalani kept baiting Gandhi, asking him to file a defamation case against him. But Gandhi didn’t take the bait, perhaps realising that every day in court with Jethmalani would only give more publicity to the lawyer’s conspiracy theories.
Gandhi and Jethmalani had also locked horns over the Khalistan issue. Gandhi even accused him of being anti-national for siding with those seeking a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.
It didn’t help that Jethmalani was also the lawyer for the assassins of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv’s mother and former prime minister, who was gunned down by her own bodyguards.
But, in later years, Jethmalani had a change of heart and said there had been no wrongdoing on Gandhi’s part in the Bofors case. He even appeared for the Hinduja brothers in the case.
Also read: I felt very strongly that Rajiv Gandhi was not corrupt: B. Raman on the Bofors scandal
Taking on Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Jethmalani first became a parliamentarian when he won the Bombay North-West constituency in 1977 and again in 1980. Later, the BJP brought him to the Rajya Sabha.
In the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed in 1999, Jethmalani was Union minister of law and urban development. However, his statements against then-Chief Justice of India A.S. Anand prompted Vajpayee to ask him to put in his papers a year later. Jethmalani blamed Attorney General Soli Sorabjee for his ouster from the government.
Not one to forget, Jethmalani decided to contest against Vajpayee from the Lucknow constituency in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
Relationship gone sour with Modi
Jethmalani was an avid supporter of Modi as Gujarat chief minister, and helped him with his legal issues. He also played an important role in pitchforking him to the national stage, reasoning that Modi would bring back India’s black money stashed in foreign banks.
However, after Modi became PM in 2014, there was a bitter parting of ways. Jethmalani accused the Modi government of doing little to bring back black money.
Such was his angst that after The Sunday Guardian, the newspaper he helped M.J. Akbar launch, refused to publish an opinion piece by him questioning the Modi government’s seriousness to tackle the menace of black money, he decided to take out a half-page advertisement in The Indian Express to publish his opinion.
But, in mid-2018, Arun Jaitley’s visit to the senior lawyer’s house ensured that all was forgotten and forgiven.
K.M. Nanavati was accused of murdering his wife’s lover and not his wife. It’s factually wrong.
Whenever an eminent Indian dies, it reminds me the futility of fight among humans for earthly things.
It must be pointed out that Jethmalani was an integral part of the dysfunction of our legal system. The ability to get your case heard in the higher courts is the key to the huge retainers that he (and other senior lawyers) charged. This has nothing to do with the legal complexity of the case. As an example, consider the crores that his retainer required for Kejriwal in a defamation case. This is a case of minor legal issues that can be handled by just about any lawyer. What is critical is the ability to get your case heard, or delayed is the key to understanding why the fees are so high. In pursuit of this procedural manipulation, lawyers , including Jethmalani, will even absent themselves to get delays for their clients. Getting the “right” justice to hear your case is the difference between winning an loosing. It is the extent of the decay in the legal system, that virtually the entire legal community participates in these practices and the more famous you get, the easier and more valuable you become.