LITIGANTS, LAWYERS AND JUDGES continues...

They took him to a barrister living close to my house and the barrister told him that he was Mehr Chand Mahajan. He treated him to a good cup of tea but the astute Nachint Chand somehow felt that this barrister could not be the man he had come to engage; he did not speak the pahari spoken by residents of the Kangra District. So he quietly slipped out of the barrister’s house leaving all his papers there. He asked somebody whom he met on the road about my address, and narrated to me the whole story. I got back the papers from the barrister and filed the appeal which eventually ended successfully in favour of Her Highness.

Another interesting case which I had to conduct during this year was, the Liquidator of the Peoples Bank vs. Raja Sir Daya Kishan Kaul. After serving the Kashmir State for many years under Maharaja Partap Singh, the Raja had gone to Patiala from where he retired as Prime Minister to the Maharaja of Patiala. He was a Director of the Peoples’ Bank of Northern India. He had taken some loans from the bank. The Liquidator secured orders summoning him for public examination in the court of Sir Douglas Young. This went on for a number of days. Many embarrassing questions were put to him. In my cross-examination I placed his, or rather the Director’s, version of events on the record. Eventually at my suggestion, Sir Daya Kishan Kaul offered to pay the entire amount due from him, in the court. The liquidator agreed and the payment was made through me at the desk of the Chief Justice.

Both my father and myself having been in the independent profession of law, I was very much averse to my sons joining government service. My eldest son Daya Krishan Mahajan had already taken to the profession of law. My second son Purshotam Mahajan had left for England to compete for the I.C.S. I decided to train Maharaj for agriculture.


to be continued....

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