Ram Jethmalani

Ram Jethmalani
Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
Member of Parliament for Rajasthan
Minister of Law and Justice
In office June 1999 – July 2000
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Thambi Durai
Succeeded by	Arun Jaitley
Minister of Urban Development
In office 19 March 1998 – 14 June 1999
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs
In office 16 May 1996 – 1 June 1996
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Personal details
Born	(1923-09-14) 14 September 1923 Shikharpur, British India
Political party	Bhartiya Janata Party
Spouse	Ratna R.
Residence	New Delhi
Alma mater	S.C. Shahani Law College, Karachi
Profession	Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India
Website	http://www.ramjethmalani.com/

Ram Jethmalani, (Hindi): राम जेठ्मलानी,(Sindhi): رام جيٺملاڻي born September 14, 1923, in Shikharpur in Sindh (now in Pakistan)) is an eminent Indian lawyer and politician. He has served at various posts like the Law Minister of India and as Chairman of Bar Associations. He has represented a sweep of cases from the high-profile to the controversial for which he has often faced severe criticisms. He is the highest paid Indian lawyer The family inherits its surname Jethmalani from Shri Jethmal who was an eminent personality in Shikarpur, Pakistan and later a minister in Afghanistan.

Ram Jethmalani is known as an eminent legal personality. Jethmalani is considered a maverick and has many distinctions to his credit. He completed his law at an early age of 18 and started professing law there until the partition of India and Pakistan after which when left his hometown as shifted to Bombay as a refugee. He came to India with his family and began his life fresh. He married Ratna Jethmalani, his first wife, in 1947, and Durga, his second wife.He has 2 sons and 2 daughters, two of whom, Mahesh Jethmalani and Rani Jethmalani are also well known lawyers.

He was elected a member of parliament in 6th and 7th Lok Sabha on a BJP ticket from Mumbai. He has served as Law Minister of India and also as Minister of Urban Development during the Prime Ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee against whom he later on contested election in General Elections 0f 2004 from Lucknow constituency. However in 2010 he came back to Bharatiya Janta Party and was elected to Rajya Sabha on its ticket from Rajasthan. He has also been criticsed as being opportunistic because of this.

He is a well known face amongst the legal community in India. Even though he is primarily known as only a criminal lawyer, he has appeared in many high profile cases. On May 7, 2010 he was elected to be the president of Supreme Court Bar Association.

Life History

Ram Jethmalani got a double promotion in school and completed matriculation at the age of 13. He secured an LLB degree at the meager age of 17. At that time the minimum age for becoming a lawyer was 21 but special resolution allowed him to become a lawyer at 18.

Ram Jethmalani was married at an age of little above 18, to Ratna. Durga, a lawyer by profession was his second wife who he had married secretly on the eve of partition. Polygamy was then allowed in Pakistan. His family included two wives and four children — three from Durga (Rani, Shobha, Mahesh) and one from Ratna (Janak).

As a Lawyer

Ram Jethmalani started his career as a professor in Pakistan before partition. He started his own law firm in Karachi with his friend A.K. Brohi who was senior to him by six years. In February 1948, when the riots broke out in Karachi, he fled to India on the advice of his friend Bodhi who later turned to be the Law Minister of Pakistan

Ram Jethmalani first came to spot light with his appearance in the famous K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra case in 1959 with Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud, later to become Chief Justice of India. His later defence of a string of smugglers in the late 1960s established Jethmalani’s image as a ‘smuggler’s lawyer’. Even back then, he would point out that he was only doing his duty as a lawyer.

In 1953 he became a part-time professor at the Government Law College, Mumbai for both graduate and post graduate studies. He also taught Comparative law at International Law at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has also been the Chairman of Bar Council of India for four tenures both before and after the emergency. He was also a member of International Bar Association 1996.

Political career

In 1971, Ram Jethmalani contested as an independent candidate from Ulhasnagar supported both by the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Jan Sangh but he lost the elections. During the Emergency period of 1975-1977, he was the chairman of the Bar Association of India. He heavily criticized the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. An arrest warrant was issued against him from Kerala. It was stayed by the Bombay High Court when over 300 lawyers led by Nani Palkhivala appeared for him. However the stay was nullified by the famous Habeas Corpus judgment (Additional District Magistrate of Jabalpur v. Shiv Kant Shukla) and Ram Jethmalani exiled himself in the Canada carrying on his campaign against the Emergency. He returned 10 months later after Emergency was lifted. While in Canada, his candidature was filed from Bombay North-West constituency. He won the election and retained the seat in 1980 General Elections, but lost to Sunil Dutt of the Indian National Congress in 1985. In the 1977 general elections after the Emergency, he ousted the serving Law Minister H.R. Gokhale from Bombay in the Lok Sabha Elections and hence started his political career as a Parliamentarian. However he was not made law minister himself as Morarji Desai disapproved of his lifestyle.

He became a member of Rajya Sabha in 1988. He became The Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs in 1996 in the Government of India led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. During the second tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he was given the portfolio of Union Minister of Urban Affairs and Employment in 1998. But on October 13, 1999 he was again sworn in as the Union Minister for Law, Justice & Company Affairs. However he was asked to resign by the Prime Minister following differences with the then Chief Justice of India Adarsh Sein Anand and Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee. It is believed that Jethmalani never enjoyed the confidence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was inducted into the Cabinet on Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani's insistence.

He had also announced his candidature for President of India stating "I owe it to the nation to offer my services'" and launched his own political fronts, the Bharat Mukti Morcha, launched as a ‘mass movement’ in 1987 and in 1995 he launched his own political party called Pavitra Hindustan Kazhagam, with a motto to achieve “Transparency in functioning of Indian Democracy.”

In the General Elections of 2004, he contested against Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the Lucknow constituency as an independent candidate. Indian National Congress and Samajwadi Party did not field their candidates in this election. However he lost. Later on, in 2010, he was given a Rajya Sabha ticket by Bharatiya Janta Party from Rajasthan and he was selected.

Controversies

Ram Jethmalani has often been surrounded by controversies.

Defense of High profile cases

He has a number of high profile defense cases to his credit as a lawyer (citation). He has taken up unpopular defense cases such as defending the killers of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, people involved in market scams (Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh), and a host of gangsters and smugglers including the British citizen Daisy Angus who was acquitted of hashish smuggling after serving 5 years in jail. He has also defended death sentence of Afzal Guru a Pakistani terrorist convicted for 2001 Indian Parliament attack. He also defended L.K Advani in Hawla Scam. Recently he was in the news for taking up the defense of Manu Sharma, prime accused in the Jessica Lall murder case, however, he failed to get Manu Sharma acquitted. He is now going to be defending Lalit Modi - IPL Chairman.

• Defense of Indira Gandhi's killers
• Harshad Mehta's defense in stock market scam
• Ketan Parekh's defense in stock market scam
• Underworld don Haji Mastan
• Defended death sentence of Afzal Guru
• L K Advani's defense in Hawala Scam
• Manu Sharma's defense in Jessica Lall murder case
• Amit Shah's (Gujarat's former Minister of State for Home) defense in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.
• Amit Jogi's defence (son of Ajit Jogi) in the case of Ramavatar Jaggi murder case.

However Ram Jethmalani is of the opinion that he is someone who thinks independently, who has not mortgaged his soul or intelligence to anybody. He says "I decide according to my conscience who to defend. A lawyer who refuses to defend a person on the grounds that people believe him to be guilty is himself guilty of professional misconduct."

After he joined Bharatiya Janta Party in 2010, when he was asked why he had defended Afzal Guru against his death sentence when his party was in support of it, he replied that he had meant that such indoctrinated elements (like Afzal) shouldn’t be allowed to die easily, but they should made to rot in jails

Controversy during his Ministerial term

• There was a clash between him and then Attorney General of India, Soli Sorabjee. Jethmalani felt Soli Sorabjee was exceeding his brief and flaunting his political clout. There were exchanges of rude letters and a series of accusations on both sides. This finally cost him his ministerial berth.
• Chief Justice A.S. Anand took exception to not being consulted on the appointment of MRTP commission head. Jethmalani felt the judiciary was poaching on the executive's turf. The exchange of letters turned acrimonious and culminated in Anand making a formal complaint to Vajpayee.
• Jethmalani antagonised the legal fraternity with his brash handling of the lawyer's strike this year. He was even expelled from the Bar Association.
• As Union Minister of Urban Affairs and Employment in 1998-99, Jethmalani's decision in the MS Shoes case landed him in controversy. Following a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry, the Government concluded he was guilty of an administrative error but not criminal conspiracy.
• The Supreme Court of India made adverse comments on the Government's doublespeak on the Srikrishna Commission report. This was interpreted as evidence of the judiciary's exasperation with the law minister.

Awards and Achievements

• International Jurist Award
• World Peace Through Law Award
• In 1977 he received Human Rights Award instituted by World Peace Through Law for his fight against authoritarianism at Phillipines.

Books

• Biography: Ram Jethmalani : The Authorized Biography by Nalini Gera
• In April 2007 at the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released one of his books titled Conscience of a Maverick.
• Big Egos, Small Men, Har Anand Publications.

External links

• Ramjethmalani.com
• Members BioProfile
• Rajya Sabha Member

See also

• K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra