A trip to Europe continues....

The result was I could not sleep, while Jagan Nath in the same cabin was snoring. Having got tired of sleeplessness, I woke up Jagan Nath and we started talking till I fell asleep in the early hours of the morning.

I had been told during my school days, “See Naples before you die.” So when the boat halted at Naples, we made it a point to visit Naples. It was a disappointing experience. I found it was not a very clean city and thought I had been cheated by the person who had said, “See Naples before you die.”

From Bombay we travelled to Lahore by the Frontier Mail. My son Pran, who was then three years’ old, did not recognize me because I had shaved off my moustache! After sometime. however, he was persuaded that I was the same father who had left for England a few months before.











12
LITIGANTS, LAWYERS AND JUDGE

IN 1932, Khan Bahadur Amin-ud-din, I.C.S., who was then a secretary to the Government of the Punjab, entrusted me with an interesting case. He owned some land in one of the suburbs of Lahore. The Punjab Government acquired the land for the Lahore Improvement Trust and decided to pay him compensation calculating its value on the basis of the use to which the land was being then put, according to the provisions of the Improvement Trust Act. It was a vacant piece of land which had not been put to any use. But it was a potential building site and the owner planned to sell it in small plots for residential houses. In the matter of paying compensation for land acquired, the Improvement Trust had taken its stand on a full bench decision of the Allahabad High Court. I challenged the decision when the matter was referred to the District Judge at the instance of Khan Bahadur Amin-ud-din.

to be continued....