LITIGANTS, LAWYERS AND JUDGES continues...


The foul smells of the sewer in front of the Fane Road house had become absolutely unbearable and no appeals to the municipal committee to re-convert this sewer into a rain water drain had any effect whatsoever.

For some years a good deal of heat had been generated in the High Court by the contest for the presidentship of the Bar association between Dewan Ram Lal and Mr Jagan Nath Aggarwal. Some time one and some time the other got elected. Eventually on the proposal of Lala Jagan Nath I was unanimously elected President of the High Court Bar in 1938 and retained this position till I was elevated to the Bench.

My father and I had planted a number of gardens but most of them were ornamental only. By now I had become convinced that in order to make a success of horticulture, it was necessary to concentrate on varieties of such fruits only as were popular in the market and could stand the rough and tumble of transport. With this object in view I decided to purchase about 20 acres of land and to plant blood-red maltese oranges there. The land was then being used for cultivating rice but with proper use of fertilizers, it became suitable for horticulture. Orchards in the districts of Sialkot and Gujranwala were famous for blood-red oranges. In order to select the plants I asked my cousin to bring the best fruit from the various orchards he visited. We used to sample the fruit and then order the plants. In this manner, I purchased about 1000 of these plants and planted them on the land which I had acquired. This garden eventually became a commercial success and now produces the best blood-red oranges in the Punjab.

I was engaged in a very interesting case arising in the family of Rai Bahadur Banwari Lal of Bhiwani. It was a typical illustration of how brothers could fight a battle royal among themselves in different courts even after the award of an arbitrator arrived at with the consent of all the parties.


to be continued....