Ram Boolchand Jethmalani - A Robin Hood-style Lawyer Who Didn't Mince Words.

He was a truly captivating, inspiring character to me. For others, he was a source of constant confusion, a man who seemed to follow no universal ideals, a spiritual and intellectual dilettante. Ram Jethmalani - the most unpredictable politician, who lived his whole life and died four days shy of his 96th birthday.

A sign was made around 2013-14 at the main gate of senior advocate Ram Jethmalani's Akbar Road residence in Delhi. The sign said to everyone, "Mr. Ram Jethmalani has stopped accepting fresh briefs." However, four years (approx.) ago, the eminent lawyer remained busy with his legal practice before his health deteriorated. He was among the best-paid lawyers until he appeared before the judge.

There is nothing known about his personal life. He began studying at Tekchand Pathshala, for which his father had to pay the princely sum of Rs 4 a month in those days. He finished his school in Sukkur, Pakistan, at the age of 14, after receiving a couple of dual promotions. Susan Adelman, his biographer, writes about Jethmalani's naughtiness at school: "One day, when he was 14, the principal called all the students to come to the schoolyard at 1 p.m. When asked why, he replied, 'I'm going to thrash Ram Jethmalani for undermining the school's values.'

It seems that he told the boys in his class what they did at night to amuse themselves to have fun in their houses they said that they would usually read or study, and he said that he would teach them something they could themselves do which in turn would be a lot more of fun. "His father, ignoring his fascination with his grandfather's vocation, the law, sent him first to study science and then engineering. He was unhappy. He entered the SC Shahani Law College in 1939 and in 1941 he graduated as a lawyer at 17. He fought and won the case which allowed him to practice law – not at 21, but at 18. This helped him to get first place in law school. Finally, sir began to practice law at the age of 18.

He was married to Durga Ahuja at the age of 18, 16. Jethmalani shuttled as long as he could between Bombay and Karachi. Yet in 1947, when the killing began, he packed off his bags and fled Pakistan with his family. He saw his family in a squalid refugee camp, and he vowed that he would never be poor again. He had to say that to himself and his family, many times later.

After arriving at Bombay, the family struggled to adjust. Jethmalani took all the cases that he could possibly get: criminal, corporate (Sindhi Bankers challenging foreign exchange laws lined up at the door when he won one case) and armed robbers and dacoits. He fell in love and married second time when he was already married to Durga – Ratna Shahani - herself a lawyer, and later his legal partner. He has dealt with a lot of refugee cases. It was the same even for the – Indians saw refugees as a threat and regarded most of them as second-class people. They were not better treated by the law. Ram Jethmalani battled for better laws not only for himself but for all those who came to India in the expectation of a better future under the Constitution of India in 1950.

Jethmalani lived in the Sindh pre-partition and had to seek a special exemption from the court to be permitted to practice law, as he had completed his Bar examination at just 17 years of age, four years below the required threshold.

After moving to Bombay (now Mumbai) since Partition, Jethmalani became prominent for his brilliant claims in the last case decided by the country's jury — that of Navy officer K.M. Nanavati, who was accused of killing his wife for having an extra-marital affair.

Jethmalani continued to appear for frontline leaders like Amit Shah, L.K. Advani, Lalu Prasad Yadav, J. Jayalalithaa, and Arvind Kejriwal. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi used to meet him frequently in the time span when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

He said himself that he had also appeared in front of the court for "smugglers and goondas." Yet he looked it as a ‘Robin Hood-style’ act.

"They’re paying me good money, which helps me to appear free of charge to anyone who can't afford it. Even, under the Constitution, everybody deserves equal treatment in court”, he always said this whenever asked why he used to appear for the likes of Haji Mastan and Harshad Mehta’s stock scam. Sir also represented the Parliament attack, accused Afzal Guru.

Jethmalani declined at least 100 of the cases he took on. One of his juniors once said, "He charges just 10% of his customers. The majority of them are pro bono events. Yet there are also occasions where the client fails to consider the brief, even though the client provides a blank cheque.”

Apparently, after the bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993, Don Dawood Ibrahim made a phone call to Jethmalani, promising to surrender under two conditions:

• no death penalty for the don, and

• Jethmalani to be his lawyer.

Jethmalani declined to consider this brief.

Whenever he had time, Jethmalani would go to teach law students, one of the few senior lawyers to do so. He would often say, "This is my way of staying young."

Rajiv Gandhi and 10 questions

Bofors could not have been the fraud it did if the mercurial Jethmalani had not wanted to take matters into his own hands. He began his self-funded trip to Sweden to "investigate" the issue, and proceeded to take on then – Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with a vengeance that had possibly never been seen in Indian politics before.

The owner of the Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka, gave him space to publicly ask Gandhi 10 questions a day. It was an ill-maintained secret that Jethmalani had helped some of Gandhi’s enemies in Congress.

Gandhi responded by comparing Jethmalani to a puppy: "I don't have to answer any dog that barks."

This only helped the headline-searching lawyer, who responded by accepting that he was a "watchdog" and that "watchdogs were only barking thieves."

Jethmalani kept baiting Gandhi, asking him to file a case of defamation against him. But Gandhi did not take the bait, perhaps realizing that Jethmalani's conspiracy theories would be given more publicity every day in the court.

Gandhi and Jethmalani had already locked horns at the Khalistan issue. Gandhi also accused him of being anti-national to side with those seeking a separate Sikh state in Khalistan.

It didn't help that Jethmalani was also a lawyer for the assassins of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv’s mother and former prime minister, who had been gunned down by his own bodyguards.

But in later years, Jethmalani had a change of heart and said there was no wrongdoing on Gandhi's part in the Bofors case. He also appeared in the case of the Hinduja brothers.

Taking on Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Jethmalani became a member of parliament for the first time when he won the North-West Bombay in 1977 and again in 1980. Later, the BJP took him to the Sabha Rajya.

In the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which was established in 1999, Jethmalani was the Union Minister for Law and Urban Development. Nevertheless, his remarks against the then-Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, prompted Vajpayee to ask him to appear in his papers a year later. Jethmalani blamed Attorney General Soli Sorabjee for his government's outburst.

Not to be overlooked, Jethmalani agreed to challenge the Vajpayee of Lucknow in the 2004 elections in Lok Sabha.

The relationship with Modi went sour

Ram Jethmalani was a staunch supporter of Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat and helped him with his legal problems. He also played an important role in bringing him to the national stage, arguing that Modi would bring back India’s black money stashed by foreign banks.

When Modi became PM in 2014, there was a bitter parting of the way. Jethmalani accused the Modi government of doing nothing to get the black money back.

His anguish was that ‘The Sunday Guardian’, the newspaper, he helped, M.J. Akbar, refused to publish an opinion piece by questioning the seriousness of the Modi government's response to the threat of black money, decided to publish a half-page advertisement in The Indian Express.

But Arun Jaitley’s visit to the senior lawyer's house in mid-2018 ensured that everything was forgotten and forgiven.

Across the way in his life journey, Jethmalani collected allies, rivals, and political enemies. Whatever he saw about them, he never minced his words. There can never be a second Ram Jethmalani.

I hope I was able to justify my knowledge about him, will meet you in my next blog. Till then STAY HEALTHY MENTALLY & PHYSICALLY.