CHAPTER 7
PRACTISING LAW AT GURDASPUR

continues....


I could thus maintain a good table and entertain friends and officials, liberally. Within a short time I became quite popular in the district and never suffered from want of work. My leisure time I spent in reading law reports and making a digest of them. Father had given his digest to me and I kept it up to date to the last days of my practice and then loyally handed it over to my son Daya Krishan. I learnt a good deal of law by reading the law reports regularly. During the five years I stayed in Gurdaspur my practice ranged between Rs. 300 to Rs. 500. My highest ambition then was to be at the top of Gurdaspur Bar and take the place of Lala Moti Ram, the leading civil lawyer of the place who is still practising there. He was, I think, then making Rs. 1,000 or so a month.

I remember a few leading and sensational cases in which I appeared along with some front-rank lawyers. One was a dacoity case in village Tola in Shakargarh tehsil. There were internal disputes among the members of a Mahajan family. The story was that the two elders in the family, who used to sleep in the covered entrance to the house, conspired with some Jat and Mazabhi dacoits and asked them to commit a dacoity in their house in the rooms occupied by members of the other branch. The dacoits who were allowed free entrance to the house, looted the place, wounded the members of the other branch and made a get-away unmolested. The elders who had invited the dacoits were also sent up for trial with the dacoits and were sentenced to seven years. each. They died in jail.

Another sensational case centred round Balmukand Mahajan. He was a near relation of Diwan Sant Ram, Bar-at-Law, the leading criminal lawyer of Gurdaspur. The case came up before Hari Chand, one of the local magistrates. Balmukand, a postal clerk, was accused of having embezzled money.


to be continued....