My First Brief continues....

A short-statured man on a tall agile horse, he was a spectacle to behold.

My first case in the Sessions Court, in which I appeared before Mr. Campbell, I. C. S.—he later became a Judge of the Punjab High Courtwas quite interesting. A murder had been committed in a village in tehsil Dehra Gopipur in which the elder brother of my father’s Munshi, Thakur Raghbir Singh, was involved along with two others. I appeared for him. He was a Patwari in the Ilaqa. Father represented the second accused and another lawyer appeared for the third. There was no direct evidence in the case. There was a retracted confession of one of the accused. Sunder Das, as the Public Prosecutor, wanted to prove that he was in no way lenient to his friend’s (Babu Brij Lal’s) Munshi. He fought hard on behalf of the Crown. The prosecution witnesses were well tutored and every effort was made to prove the case. Campbell was a convicting judge. We all cross-examined the witnesses. During my cross-examination, the prosecution witnesses broke down. I addressed the assessors in eloquent Urdu and argued the law points in English. My client was acquitted.

Two most important civil cases I did with father were, Basakhi Mal Vs. Kaju Mal and Thakar Singh Vs. Inder Singh. Both went up to the Privy Council. We won the first and lost the second, in the end. The facts of the first case were that the Gopalpur Tea, Estate was sold by its European owner to a leading Sud family, the head of which was Lala Kaju Mal. Raja Sir Daya Krishan Kaul got interested in this estate and was keen to purchase it. He consulted father. Father suggested that the only way to get it was by persuading some owners of the village to pre-empt the sale and then if the pre-emption suit was successful buy the estate. Kaju Mal was not prepared to part with it at any cost.

to be continued....