Practising Law at Gurdaspur....


Amongst the sub-judges and magistrates, Lala Ghansham Das, M.A., LL.B., was a competitionwalla and hailed from Multan. He was a man of literary tastes and was president of our literary association. Charagh Din was a Muslim lawyer with good practice and. was a very communal minded person. He had organised a communal clique in Gurdaspur. In order to win his cases, he used to bully Hindu officers. Ghansham Das on whom he tried the usual tactics was made of sterner stuff. Charagh Din started writing against Ghansham Das in The Observer, a Muslim paper published in Lahore by Malik Barkat Ali who had been dismissed from the Punjab Civil Service for corruption. Barkat Ali posed as a nationalist. So I wrote to him in defence of Lala Ghansham Das. At first he did not publish my letter but when I reminded him that he called himself a nationalist, he did so. Charagh Din then persuaded Mukhtar Ahmad to write a rejoinder. Ultimately Barkat Ali refused to publish further letters on this subject. Ghansham Das stood firm and refused to be browbeaten by Charagh Din and other Muslim lawyers. He was a just judge and retired as a district and sessions judge.

Lala Moti Ram was the leading civil lawyer. He is still practicing. He was my model then. He is an acute and brilliant civil lawyer, but is not very good in argument. He does not enjoy much command over the English language and his delivery is not quite effective. But he can easily confuse a dull judge and get a verdict in his favour. He is very hardworking, a man of stainless character and is president of the Arya Samaj. He is the life and soul of this movement in Gurdaspur.

Then there was Mehta Jagan Nath, a good old soul; he has retired now. Bawa Gurdit Singh was another lawyer with very little practice but a man learned in the Vedas. He used to give discourses in the Arya Samaj and was an advocate of meat eating which he justified by quoting Vedic texts.

to be continued....