LITIGANTS, LAWYERS AND JUDGES continues...

After his retirement, he was made a judicial member of the Privy Council. After serving two or three terms as Privy Counsellor, he became ill, for the English climate during winter did not suit him. After his return to India, when I last met him at Mussoorie, he was beginning to lose his grip. Eventually, he lost all sense of reality and died 3 years later.

Sir Douglas Young succeeded Sir Shadi Lal as the Chief Justice of the Lahore High court. In the beginning of his career he created a very favourable impression on the Bar. He became extremely popular with members of the bar practising on the criminal side as he took a strict view of the onus in criminal cases and always gave the maximum benefit of doubt to the accused. The Punjab Government got considerably upset with the acquittals in murder cases and tried in different ways to impress upon him that the crime situation in the Punjab would worsen if acquittals at that rate continued. Sir Douglas then modified his attitude.

His popularity with the Bar and the Bench did not however last very long. He started a crusade against the People’s Bank of Northern India and its Managing Director, Lala Harkishan Lal. Encouraged by the loose talk of the Chief Justice outside the Court, some shareholders applied for liquidation of the Bank and of the different concerns with which Lala Harkishan Lal was connected. Sir Douglas Young accepted most of these applications and imported one. of his favourites from Allahabad, Mr. Bhagwati Shankar, as liquidator. He took his orders from Sir Douglas Young in everything. Sir Douglas then ordered that all liquidation cases be heard by him or by Mr. Justice Monroe who shared his views. All other judges of the High Court were kept away from liquidation work or from appeals arising from the decisions of the liquidation Judge sitting singly. This attitude resulted in the Court being split up in two parties, Mr. Justice Munroe and the Chief Justice versus the rest of the Court.

to be continued.....