LITIGANTS, LAWYERS AND JUDGES continues...

Actually, he had never lived in the room. He had a commodious house and a shop at Bhadwar!

There used to be an open pond by the side of our house at Bhadwar. It had been the wish of my mother that this pond should be converted into a tank so that the people could use its water for household purposes. I converted this pond into a brick-lined tank. There is a nice spring near our Bhadwar garden. It was now in a dilapidated condition. My father had been planning to have that spring built in stone masonry with a bathroom attached for the use of womenfolk. I carried out the wish of my father in this matter and had the spring built pucca with a bath-room attached to it. In memory of my father, I opened an Ayurvedic Dispensary a Tika Nagrota. I built an up-to-date building in 1937-38 for housing the dispensary, which was ultimately taken over by the Government.

My uncle, Mahesh Dass, who died in 1929 had left a daughter, Leela. I undertook to perform her wedding and did so in the year 1933. The bridegroom and his party came from Lahore. It was the mango season. The party enjoyed the mangoes of a famous local mango-tree.

A very important and interesting case was given to me during this year by Rai Bahadur Bawa Dinga Singh, a big landlord and a partner of Spedding Dinga Singh and Co. He had agreed to buy certain land from Bedi Kartar Singh, a descendant of Baba Sir Khem Singh Bedi of Rawalpindi. The suit was brought to enforce the “agreement to sell” because the vendor had backed out of the contract. During the litigation before the court the question arose whether a receipt which was an important document in the case had been signed by Bawa Dinga Singh. A Government handwriting expert—an Englishman to boot—testified in the Court that the receipt bore the signature of Bawa Dinga Singh who, however, denied having signed it. Later on, the export reversed himself and declared that the signature seemed to be forged.

to be continued..