HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD

Remembrance of things Past

Hon’ble Mr Justice K.N. Goyal

Former Judge, High Court , Allahabad

After three years at the civil bar in Agra I spent the next fifteen in as many as eight stations. In those halcyon days and occasional tiff between a presiding officer and an advocate was not unknown, but group reaction was something unheard of. Office staff was obedient and efficient, the docket was manageable, suits and sessions trials were heard die et diem. And one could enjoy his game of tennis or bridge if he was so minded. Those were the times.

My last posting in the field was at Etawah as Civil and Sessions Judge (1961-63). There Sri P.S. Gupta had already made his mark in the younger bar. Sri O.P. Verma had just joined as Munsif. When I was deputed to the Secretariat Sri L.P. Nigam was L.R. He was easily among the best L.R.’s the Government could boast of. There I found several other very able officers who were later elevated: Sri R. Chandra, Sri Jag Mohan Lal, Sri Prem Prakash and Sri B.L. Loomba.

Despite the assignment of officers to the legislative and judicial-cum-advice wings separately, L.R. could always ask, and it was indeed common practice to do so, any officer of his choice to examine or advise on any problem. Drafting of bills and ordinances generally entails involvement of at least two officers. Thus Sri Lal and myself or I and Sri Loomba often worked in tandem.

I did not have much day to day work to start with. I was deputed to attend meetings of the Assembly Rules Committee headed by the Speaker. Fresh rules were being drafted, and in Hindi at that. This was my first introduction to parliamentary procedure.

I those salad days, time was in abundance. Mandatory revision of the Constitution apart, one could browse through the very well stocked library. Books on legislative drafting (Russell, Dickerson, Thring) were of course tools of the trade. In my earlier postings, I had made an acquaintance with some English books, by courtesy of the bar associations. The mose interesting of them was Fifty Forensic Fables by ‘O’. At Kanpur we had started a Civil Court Club which borrowed dozens of books from the British Council Library of New Delhi by post. These included A.P. Herbert’s ‘Misleading Cases’ and ‘Holy Deadlock’, besides Dr Glanville Williams’ ‘Learning the Law’ and ‘Proof of Guilt’. In the L.R. Library the shelves were full of books (including periodicals) to be tasted, books to be swallowed, and books to be chewed and digested. The L.Q.R., the M.L.R. the Public Law, The New Law Journal, C.W.:N., among others made interesting reading. Henry Cecil’s legal fiction, biographies of lawyers and judges, the Notable British Trials, ‘Law in Literature’, ‘Law as Literature’, ‘law and Flaws’, and so many others, only whetted your appetite. American legal literature had refreshing candour of its own.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn through the C.L.R. that even in Australia, where the settlers were all Englishmen, the judges of superior courts are address as their “Honour” (just as in the U.S.A.) and not as lordships

In our country, in the field of academic literature relating to judicial decisions, we have the Journal of the Indian Law Institute besides occasional writings of P.K. Tripathi, Upendra Baxi, Rajeev Dhawan and P.M. Bakshi, but that is about all. A lot can be done through our Institute (J.T.R.I.) if it is freed of departmental shackles and is converted into an autonomous society like the C.S.I.R., the Administrative Staff College, the I.I.M. and other prestigious institutions.

But I am digressing. The 16th amendment of the Constitution added to the various forms of oath the words “that I uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India”. A few days after it received the president’s assent the new ministry headed by Smt. Sucheta Kripalani was sworn in. No one remembered about the amendment, and the old form was used. There were red faces all round as soon as the mistake became public. The axe fell on the L.R., the others being all laymen!

Ironically, about the same time, Desai C.J. had administered oath to three judges Sarvsri C.B. Capoor, Satish Chandra and H.C.P. Tripathi, also in the old form. The validity of the assumption of office by Sri Satish Chandra was challenged by a litigant. The question was referred to a division bench headed by Jagdish Sahai J. He held (Shabbir v. State 1964 ALJ 315) that the deviation in the form was not substantial, inasmuch as the pre-existing words “that I will up hold  the Constitution and the laws” covered the affirmation to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of the country as well.

After Sri Nigam’s departure the Law Department was bifurcated¾temporarily¾with Sri R. Chandra and Sri K.C. Puri as secretaries of judicial and legislative wings respectively. Sri Nigam was ultimately vindicated, and elevated to the High Court a few months later.

Then came eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the assembly and the High Court. Officers of the executive, though privately chuckling over the tangle, could not however afford to fall foul of either. Discretion lay in sitting tight over the processes issued by both. And they made themselves scarce. The State Government provided funds for litigation equally generously to both parties. The Supreme Court was embarrassed, as indirectly it became a judge in its own cause. The majority headed by Gajendragadkar C.J. adopted a pragmatic approach (AIR 1965 SC 745). Neither wing was supreme, it said, only the Constitution was. The legislator’s privileges were not disputed. But so far as judges were concerned even a discussion of their conduct being barred (articles 121 and 211), how could the House deal with them under its privilege jurisdiction? The Assembly, formally, did not accept the opinion, but made no further effort to carryout its earlier threat, and the High Court also dismissed the writ petition of Keshav Singh and sent him back to serve out the remaining sentence (AIR 1965 All. 349).

Sri Seervai was bad loser and showed it even in his academic work. Sri Setalvad, on the other hand, was infuriated with an unjustified paring in his fee bill by mandarins of the finance department, and he not only refused to accept the reduced amount but recorded in his autobiography that he had included the U.P. Government in his list of bad debtors! This ignominy could have been avoided if instead of the inane objections of F.D. being routinely relayed to the eminent Attorney General the matter had been settled at a higher level inter-departmentally.

During Sri K.C. Puri’s regime Sri J.M.L. Sinha joined on the advice side. Some time later, Charandra Mohan’s case (AIR 1966 SC 1987) came as a bolt from the blue. Both the senior most officers were at that time direct recruits¾both very amiable, competent and conscientious. The State Government was most helpful, and it moved the Centre for validation on their appointments to the H.J.S. Sri Puri’s elevation to the High Court went through regardless, as he was qualified on the basis of his earlier practice as Advocate in Peshwar. The Constitution could not be amended merely for validating eleven appointments. So the rationale was that unless the appointments were validated the judgement already rendered by the officers, including many sentences executed, might be rendered invalid. An observation in J.P. Mitter’s case (AIR 1965 SC 961) lent support to this view. The Legislative Secretary Sri S.P. Sen Verma, in whose domain all constitutional amendments fell, was not so sure controversy erupted in the Congress parliamentary Patry too. P.M. had to intervene personally, and she agreed to refer the questions to the attorney General. Sri Setalvad felt that it would be expedient to err on the side of caution, and thus the 20th Amendment went through. Interestingly the Supreme Court has since held that the “de facto doctrine: does prevail in respect of judicial acts of a judge. (Gokaraju Rangaraju v. State of A.P., AIR 1981 SC 1473). Our cordial relations in the Law Department were in no way disturbed by this unsavoury episode.

The 4th General Election brought in Sri C.B. Gupta again to head  a congress government, but with a wafer thin majority. Sri G.S.L. Srivastava was brought in as the new L.R. he had behind him considerable secretariat experience and was a seasoned officer. The Government fell when Sri Charan Singh with his group of eighteen crossed the floor. A heterogeneous combination headed by him came into power. Hitherto the same political party had been securely in power both at the Centre and in the State, but the new scenario was totally different. Quite often, from then on, different parties were to be in the saddle. Politicians were “changing their affiliations faster than their underwear”. There were constant Centre-State tensions and intra cabinet squabbles. The majority in the Assembly was shaky, the Governor, the Upper House and sometimes even the Speaker cocked a snook at the Cabinet. The Assembly once even passed a statutory resolution for abolition of the Upper House, and the very next moment there were second thoughts. On another occasion a State Minister courted arrested in Delhi. One could expect a daily does of Jennings’ Cabinet Government, Mackintosh’s British Cabinet, Jennings’ Parliament, Basu, Keith, et al. For quite a few situations no precedents were available, and questions had to be answered on the basis of constitutional norms.

Sri Charan Singh, though he now headed the S.V.D. Government, wisely insisted on Pt. K.L. Misra (Panditji) continuing as A.G. He was one of the few Ministers who took keen interest in legislation. He was a lawyer and had held many portfolios including those of Home and Justice and had been involved in Zamindari abolition legislation. When he was Incharge of Forest, Agriculture and Local Self Government departments; In Smt. Kripalani’s cabinet I had had the opportunity of discussing with him the drafts of bills pertaining to his portfolios. In the Forest Act one amendment sought to transfer the Revisional powers of the Additional Commissioner to the District Judge. When the proposal reached the Cabinet one very senior minister expressed surprised at the proposal to transfer powers from "our own man" to the judiciary. Sri Charan Singh silenced him by saying “If our man can be dishonest at our bidding, will he hesitate, in being so for his own sake?” Later, when he was C.M. for the second time he personally headed the Select Committee to consider and thrash out the Goonda Bill.

Most of the legislative proposals initiated by C.M. were assigned by L.R. to me. One was a food grains procurement order under the Essential Commodities Act. It invited some flak. Along with the Advocate on Record Sri O.P. Rana (an old friend from my Meerut days when we were tennis court companions) I went to our senior counsel Sri C.B. Agarwala to brief him on the case. That was my first and only contact with that legal giant. I had not heard of “reading down” as a rule of statutory construction until he told me. We live and learn. Subsequent opportunities for consultation with Sri Niren De and Sri Lal Narain Sinha were equally rewarding. During Sri Charan Singh’s second stint Sri Agarwala was replaced by Sri L.M. Singhvi.

Another legislative proposal related to inquiries against public men. What was envisaged was a standing commission of inquiry to which complaints of corruption against ministers and other publicmen would stand automatically referred. The role of government was to be eliminated, and the Chief Justice was on his own to nominate a judge to hold inquiry in each case. The judge was to be assisted in his investigations by a chief Investigating Officer and his staff. So many questions of criminal law, privileges of legislature, reconciliation with existing laws, legislative competency, etc. were involved. My preparatory notes covered several hundred pages. The draft was finally vetted by Panditji. He was kind enough to sit with me on the draft in his air conditioned chambers in his Allahabad bungalow for as long as eight hours at a stretch¾with only a break for dinner, myself also enjoying his hospitality. The Ordinance was duly promulgated and a C.I.O. (Sri N.S. Saxena) appointed, but the Government fell before it could be replaced by a Bill.

Other legislative proposals I have the privilege of discussing with Panditji included the Public Moneys Recovery Ordinance (on which Governor Biswanath Das had expressed some reservations), the law for creating centralised municipal services (the language of which I adapted from article 312) and the proposal for take-over of the King George’s Medical College (which was however shelved at that time). It will be presumptuous on my part to speak of the depth of Panditji’s knowledge or his sharp intellect.

It was my rare good fortune to have had first hand experience of Panditji’s forensic eloquence earlier when he appeared before me in a couple of civil cases at Kanpur, and also as Advocate General in a matter in Jhansi (where I was Additional Sessions Judge) in which the Government unsuccessfully tried for withdrawal from the prosecution of a local body chairman for criminal misappropriation.

Legislative drafting is a grossly under-rated profession in our country. However, recently while going through a biography with the unlikely title of “In on the Act” I was pleasantly surprised to learn the Sir Maurice Gwyer’s principal qualification for the job of chief Justice was that he was the draftsman (Chief Parliamentary Counsel, as they call him in the U.K.) of the Government of India Bill 1935. Not only this, the Secretary of State for India had asked the Viceroy to consult Gwyer whenever he had any doubt or difficulty about the Constitution.

Sri J.M.L. Sinha went back as District Judge some time in 1967 and was replaced by Sri K.B. Srivastava. On Sri Gur Saran Lal’s elevation in January 1968 he was succeeded by Sri O.P. Trivedi. Soon after, Sri Charan Singh had to resign due to intra-S.V.D. squabbles, and President’s rule was imposed. Sri Gopala Reddy was the Governor. He did not take in any advisers from outside. Instead he formed an Advisory Council consisting of half a dozen Secretaries including the L.R. this was a novel experiment, and we drafted a new set of Rules of Business to operate during the President’s rule. No other State had done so before. The members of A.C. functioned virtually as Ministers, subject of course to the important qualification that the governor acted as the real head of government on whom their advice was not binding. L.R. being one of the members of the A.C., he asked me to represent the Law Department at its meetings. I had earlier had occasion to attend quite a few Cabinet meetings in Smt. Kripalani’s time.

Sri Gopala Reddy also convened meetings of M.L.C.’s as a consultative body. Their tenure is not affected by President’s rule though their legislative power remain suspended. During this period the term of Council Chairman Dr. Virendra Swarup as M.C. expired, but he was duly re-elected, the fresh term commencing at the same midnight at which the old term expired. He contended that he should therefore be deemed to have continued as Chairman as well. He furnished in support of his contention the opinion of an eminent counsel. We in the Law Department examined the matter independently and felt constrained to differ. The Governor agreed with L.R. Dr. Swarup filed a writ petition challenging the decision, first in Allahabad. (Where it was withdrawn when the Bench was not favourably inclined) and then in the Lucknow Bench. The bench headed by Jagdish Sahai J. dismissed the petition summarily by a reasoned judgement. This success raised Sri Trivedi’s stock with the Governor immensely, and he was elevated to the Bench after perhaps the shortest tenure as L.R.¾only eleven months.

The engagement of some State counsel was to be terminated in pursuance of the recommendations of the Broome Committee. The 1941 rules were causing difficulty. They purported to have been framed under section 241 of the 1935 Act (corresponding to article 309) and appeared to us misconceived as the law officers were surely not government servants. Those rules were accordingly scrapped, and new rules in the nature of executive instructions (article 162) were framed instead. The termination orders issued thereafter were however impugned in court. Sri K.N. Singh was the Chief Standing Counsel, and he stood like a rock, successfully repelling all challenges. Sri Bisheshwar Dayal Agarwal and Sri Ram Manohar Sahai were among his formidable colleagues.

Sri Trivedi was succeeded by Sri B.D. Mathur, a great gentleman, who however died of heart failure on going back as District Judge of Lucknow. The next L.R. was Sri Prem Prakash who, like Sri Gur Saran Lal earlier, was an old hand. Sri Shanti Bhushan was appointed A.G. Sri Bawan Das Agarwal , a workaholic if ever one was, was priceless acquisition. Sri P.S. Gupta was drafted, initially as Dy Government Advocate. Sri J.M.L. Sinha was elevated to the High Court, superseding his seniors Sri Hira Lal Capoor and Sri H.N. Kapur, who were however elevated later on.

On Sri C.B. Gupta’s departure, Sri T.N. Singh filled the gap for a while. Ultimately Sri Charan Singh headed a coalition government comprising his B.K.D., as the minor partner, and Congress(R).

On Sri Shanti Bhushab’s resignation as A.G. the C.M. wanted Sri Rishi Ram (Government Advocate) to act as A.G. until Panditji could be persuaded to join again. Sri Rishi Ram had however not completed ten years as advocate, and conflicting opinions were expressed as to whether his earlier practice as pleader could be tagged on for completing the qualifying period. So Sri K.N. Singh acted as A.G.

During this period a State Law Commission was set up with Justices J.K. Tandon and Gangeshwar Prasad as members. Both Judges were most learned and seasoned, but they could not pull on together and almost stopped speaking to each other. The Commission had to be wound up.

When Congress (R) withdrew its support to the coalition its ministers led by Tripathiji refused to resign. C.M. recommended their dismissal to the Governor. His contention was that as he had not been defeated on the floor of the House his advice was binding. The governor had his own doubts. The Attorney General Sri Niren De was consulted. He held the advice of the C.M. not at all binding in the circumstances. Governor then withdrew his pleasure to the continuance of Sri Charan Singh as C.M.

The next C.M. was Kamla Pati Tripathiji. Sri S.N. Kacker was the new A.G. Among elevations during the Tripathi government mention may be made of Sri K.N. Singh and Sri T.S. Misra. About this period S.K. Verma C.J. acted as Governor for a few months, only the second C.J. to do so. Sri K.C. Agarwal was appointed C.S.C. to succeed Sri K.N. Singh. The Kacker-Agarwal duo hit it off together very well.

I once had the opportunity to sit in a meeting with Smt. Gandhi in P.M.’s office along with C.M. and L.R. it was about the proposal for take over of some sugar mills. That legislation involved lot of spade work. It has since stood the test of judicial scrutiny.

A notable piece of legislation to get through was the Rent Control Bill. True it suffers from all the imperfections inherent in a compromise of conflicting interest. But what was remarkable was that in its final form it was passed unanimously both in the joint select committee and in the legislature.

One of my first acts as L.R. in 1972 was to prepare a strong case for the Finance commission for creation of many new courts and for an extensive building programme for court and residences. Later, when the commission headed by Sri Brahamanad Reddy visited Lucknow to discuss the proposals with the officers I pointed out to him the gross disproportion in the strength of the Delhi and Allahabad High Courts, considering the respective populations covered. He retorted “More the judges, more the arrears”. Ultimately we did however manage to get lots of funds.

Around this time Sarvasri D.N. Jha, Amitabh Banerji, B.N. Katju and K.C. Agarwal were elevated, all later to become Chief Justices successively. Sri P.S. Gupta succeeded Sri Katju as G.A. Sri B.D. Agarwal came in as C.S.C., subsequently to act as Advocate General for some time.

A few months later, P.A.C. revolt broke out. Well known journalist Sri P.D. Tandon who was then information Minister has elsewhere graphically described a cabinet meeting at which C.M. maintained perfect cool while just across the street even the Raj Bhawan guards had joined the rebels. I happened to be present on the occasion. The revolt was duly put down, but C.M. had to quit. He returned from P.M.’s house with a draft resignation letter. I was asked to make some verbal changes in it to make it sound less self-damning. The decision to resign was first taken at an informal cabinet meeting U.P. Bhawan, but it was formalised the next day in the cabinet room at Lucknow. Tripathiji however never lost his self composure. In that last cabinet meeting we were regaled to some interesting tales from the Puranas!

Many of the more active participants in the rebellion were later dismissed under article 311(2), second proviso(c).

With Sri Akbar Ali Khan now as the Governor, President’s rule was imposed once again. Three senior I.C.S. officers were appointed Advisers. Portfolios were divided among the advisers. Governor presided over the meetings of the A.C., but had hardly an occasion to overrule them.

The Central Government constituted a committee of M.P.’s called the Consultative Committee of Parliament on U.P. After a legislative proposal was approved by our own A.C. it had to be cleared by this committee before the Central Cabinet would forward it to the President. Quite a few President’s Acts were thus enacted, including the comprehensive Universities Act. After return of popular Government under Sri H.N. Bahuguna all those Acts had to be re-enacted by the State Legislature.

The Hindu Marriage Registration Rules were also drafted and promulgated by the Judicial Department in September 1973. The rules have proved quite a boon to applicants for green cards, as U.S. administration does not recognise a Hindu marriage unless it is backed by registration certificate.

During Sri Bahuguna’s regime new H.J.S. rules were made. Judicial Magistrates were allowed entry into the H.J.S. for the first time. The Civil and Sessions Judges all became A.D.J.’s, their separate cadre having been abolished.

In June 1975 came Sri J.M.L. Sinha’s earth shaking judgment. The rest is history.

I had the opportunity of attending the Supreme court hearings in the MISA (Shiv Kant Shukla) case. U.P. was represented by A.G. (Sri Kacker), ably assisted by Sri Girdhar Malviya. At one stage Sri Kacker almost conceded that in a clear case of malafide, judicial review could not be ruled out. There was a flurry among Home Ministry minions. The whispers reached Sri Kacker’s ears. He immediately wrote out a resignation letter. I, however, managed to persuade him not to press it. He continued with his arguments, and the judges, conveniently, made no attempt to pin him down to his concession.

On more than one occasion did Sri Kacker send in his resignation letter, but every time, except the last, when he was a mere caretaker and there was delay in the choice of his successor, he was good enough to allow me to detain it with me. He was fiercely independent, and sensitive to any real or suspected attempt to influence him either in his opinions or in regard to appointment of Law Officers.

On Sri K.S. Verma’s elevation Sri Umesh Chandra was promoted as C.S.C. Lucknow Bench. Another outstanding standing counsel here was Sri Saghir Ahmad.

One Sri Bahuguna’s resignation Governor M. Channa Reddy administered the State for some time on behalf of the President. He was much concerned about the mismanagement of Hindu shrines and their funds and wanted arrangements on the lines of Southern State. A comprehensive legislation was prepared by us. Its main architect was Sri S.N. Sahai. Among notable persons consulted on the proposal were retired Justice J.S. Trivedi and veteran politician B. Triloki Singh, besides one Sri Rao who had, as Commissioner, experience of management of Sri Tirupati and other temples. The Ordinance could be issued only after the return of popular rule (under Sri N.D. Tiwari) and an Endowments Commissioner was appointed, but when the time came for replacing the Ordinance by a Bill there was informal word from Delhi not to pursue it.

During Sri Asthana’s Chief Justiceship a large number of new posts were sanctioned for the High Court office. A meeting was also arranged in the Judges’ residential block at Lucknow, at which besides the Chief Justice, the C.M., the Finance and Home Secretaries were also present. Substantial financial outlays were cleared at this meeting Sri Satish Chandra, the last Administrative Judge to have the whole State as his bailiwick, used to take a lot of interest in these matters. He even volunteered to go and meet the Planning Commission head Sri P.N. Haksar and persuaded him to include judicial building among Plan items. Ground was prepared for this meeting with the active involvement of C.M. Sri N.D. Tiwari.

Sri S.N. Sahai’s services were later lent to Raj Bhawan mainly for legal advice on references to the chancellor. Other competent officers inducted in the Law Department in my time included Sarvsri R.C. Deo Sharma, Ganga Bux Singh, Rajeshwar Singh, K.M. Pandey, Madan Mohal Lal, who all later made it to the High Court. They along with Sarvsri B.R.P. Singhal, B.D., Ram Kishore, B.C. Shukla, Putto Lal (the first scheduled caste officer to come to the Law Department), One Prakash Pradhan, Narayan Das, I.S. Mathur, N.K. Narang and A.K. Srivastava made a first rate team. Not one officer gave any opinion during the Emergency for which we could be faulted later. If there was any matter in which the administrators or politicians wanted to go their own way they were discreet enough not refer the matter to us at all.

Those days the Legislature had always more time on its hands than ever. So a record number of Bills which had begin different stages of preparation were completed and rushed through the Cabinet and the Legislature. Among them mention may be made of Civil Laws Amendments, the Lokayukta Bill, the Public Services Tribunals Bill and the U.P. General Clauses Amendments.

Sardar Swaran Singh addressed a well attended meeting of lawyers and other intellectuals at Lucknow to justify the constitutional amendments proposed by his committee. When the 42nd Amendment came up for ratification before the U.P. Legislature Sri N.D. Tiwari faced the House with Copious references from the Constituent Assembly debates and other source material.

A Lawyer’s Forum organised a seminar on legal aid at Vigyan Bhawan. It was inaugurated by P.M. Almost all judges of the Supreme Court addressed it, speaking with fervour. Later, a breakfast meeting was held at Justice Bhagwati’s residence, in which Sri N.D. Tiwari and Justice Krishna Iyer also participated, for promotion of the programme in our State.

After the historic election of 1977 came Union Home Minster Sri Charan Singh’s famous letter to The Chief Ministers. Governments of several Congress-run States filed pleas in the Supreme Court to assail the move for their dismissal. Should U.P. join them ? I advised against the move. A very eminent counsel was then consulted and he differed from me. So I was overruled. Sri B.D. Agarwal (J.L.R.) was rushed by State plane to Allahabad from where after picking up the A.G. (Sri Raja Ram Agarwal) he rushed to Delhi and filed the petition in the Supreme Court. The next morning the papers were full of hostile observations from the bench during hearings on the petitions already filed by other States. The Cabinet met again, and Sri Tiwari handsomely acknowledged that the judges were only echoing my views of the day before. Then we allowed our petition to remain quietly buried in the registry without any attempt to mention it in the Court. Sri O.P. Rana could be depended on to manage these things.

After Assembly elections, came the government headed by Sri R.N. Yadav. Somebody filed a criminal complaint against Sri N.D. Tiwari (ex-C.M.) and the administrator G.D.A., alleging an “emergency excess”. I advised that both should, as per past precedents, be officially defended, despite the political changes. The Chief Secretary was initially unsure about the reaction of the new government, but C.M. was magnanimous enough to agree. We engaged Sri Frank Anthony, and the case was ultimately quashed.

Sri Rishi ram was appointed as the new A.G. The institution of Lokayukta was created. Ex. C.J. Sri V.G. Oak was first sounded, but he expressed his inability to come out of his contented retirement at Pune. The choice then fell on ex-C.J. Sri Bishambhar Dayal who thus became the first incumbent of the post now held by me.

Government appointed a committee to consider amendments in the Cr. P.C., headed by the A.G. The report of the committee is still gathering dust.

All this additional experience which is normally denied to a judicial officer had led me fondly to hope that it should be all plain sailing in the High Court. But the very first week on the Chief Justice’s bench (Sri Satish Chandra had taken over a few days before my elevation) as enough to deflate my ego. Except for filing my own returns I was blank in the field of direct taxes. Sri Ashok Gupta was appearing for the revenue and Sri R.K. Gulati, Sri Raja Ram, or some other taxation lawyer for the assessee. The C.J. and the two lawyers seemed to know all the cases and statutory provisions by heart, and I was a mere spectator. However, I felt quite safe in concurring even without full comprehension as all the other three used to arrive at agreed conclusions. The disposal was very quick indeed. In the next week C.J. assigned one reserved judgement to me. The case was on E.P.T. The Chief concurred without ado to my considerable relief.

At Lucknow I was first made to sit on the criminal bench with Sri Murtaza Husain, a verteran in that branch. I had myself tried well over two hundred sessions cases but that was so long ago. The criminal matters I had occasion to advise on as L.R. pertained mostly to law and order situations. Even proposals for appeals against acquittal were normally handled by others. So I had to refresh my law on murder, culpable homicide, private defence, etc. on which much case law had built up since my last sessions trial.

I was then assigned revenue writs. I did have some familiarity with the ceiling law, as it had of late been the subject of considerable legislative exercise, but the rest was largely terra incognita for me. So I took ten year’s R.D. volumes home and went through them, taking notes, so that I could face the knowledgeable lawyers (Sri K.N. Misra, Sri B.K. Singh, Sri Pradeep Kumar and others) with greater confidence.

Company and probate laws too had to be learnt almost from a scratch. I was however no stranger to election law as I had worked as Chief Electoral Officer for over five years. In an interesting company matter and an election petition oral evidence was also recorded.

Even for sitting on the rent control bench I had to brush up my case law. You have to take extra care for avoiding bloomers on a law drafted by yourself.

With administrative law and service law I was on more familiar ground, but I had nevertheless to familiarise myself better with the procedural technicalities of writs.

I sat for the longest period with brother U.C. Srivastava. Although he was senior he was generous enough to let me dictate most orders and judgements. However I had the misfortune of differing with him in two cases. I also sat on other division benches with seniors as well as juniors. There occurred only one occasion for difference with brother Saghir Ahmad. In one of the full benches I was asked to sit on, I had to dissent from the majority judgment prepared by brother T.S. Misra with whom Hari Swarup J. had concurred.

One case heard with brother R.C. Deo Sharma was a civil matter relating to the huge estate of Justice B.N. Srivastava. As almost all our brethren who had come from the bar and appeared on one side or another in the litigation and had recorded “Not before me”, out bench was specially constituted. Another was the tripartite seniority litigation among P.W.D. engineers. The arguments lasted a month. Sri Shanti Bhushan, Sri S.C. Budhwar, Sri B.C. Saxena, Sri Abdul Mannan and other Senior Advocates appeared in the case. The judgement was affirmed by the Supreme Court.

In two cases notifications issued during my stay in the secretariat had to be quashed. One was a service rule under which select lists remained alive for many years. The unintended incongruities (which we had failed to anticipate in the secretariat) that were revealed in the actual working of the rule were convincingly brought out by Sri Brijesh Kumar who appeared for the petitioners. The other related to reservation in services. The main flaw was that the so called O.B.C.’s had not been properly identified. This order had been issued without reference to Law Department. The case was argued by Sri Markandey Katju for the petitioner. Both decisions were affirmed by the apex court (State of U.P. v. Ram Gopal Shukla AIR 1981 SC 1041 and State of U.P. v. Chhotey Lal Pandey).

One of my judgments given in a bench headed by Justice K.C. Agarwal at Lucknow was overruled by a full bench, but the Supreme Court has recently accepted our view, overruling the full bench. It was about section 31(8) of the Universities Act, on whether the Chancellor’s power under the proviso was quasi-judicial in nature.

At the end of the day, judgeship was a chastening experience. It exposed so many chinks in my legal armour. It also disabused me of the notion nurtured in the Secretariat that judges had to do much less work than us. As it turned out, I had to work much harder in the High Court, although the working day was shorter and there were many more closed days.

‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might’.