Practising Law at Gurdaspur continues...


When he was posted in Kangra, he had come to my wedding. He retired as a High Court Judge. On the High Court Bench he would often go to sleep! Suddenly he would wake up, consult his notes and ask the counsel to begin again from the stage where his last note had stopped. This was very annoying to his brother judge on the Bench who had reached the end of the case!

Then there was Col. Rose. He decided cases by rule of thumb. If the appellant was the plaintiff, the appeal was usually dismissed and if the appellant was the defendant the appeal was usually accepted. His view was that the plaintiff was responsible for starting a litigation and he should be penalised in order to reduce litigation. He used to say that the most litigous tract in the Punjab was Hoshiarpur. He had a quarrel with Bosworth Smith and was consequently transferred. Bosworth could not stand cactus for he believed that it attracted snakes. He ordered that all cactus hedges in government bungalows in Gurdaspur should be pulled out and new hedges of other shrubs planted. Most of the officials voluntarily carried out his wishes but Co1. Rose declined to remove the hedge around the Sessions House. Smith could not stand this refusal. He ordered the district engineer to take a labour gang at night and pull out the hedge when the Colonel was asleep. This was done. When the Sessions Judge got up next morning, he found his house open to public gaze and was greatly upset. A quarrel arose between them and the matter went up to the government. Meanwhile, one evening when Col. Rose and Bosworth Smith were returning to Gurdaspur after a game of tennis at Dhariwal, they quarrelled in the car whereupon Smith threw Rose out of the car. This matter also went up to the government. Ultimately both were transferred from the district and Smith was made to retire. Rose had already reached his superannuation age.


to be continued....

( This account is maintained by Har Anand Publication)