Thread by @barandbench

Bombay Bar Association's farewell for Supreme Court Justice Rohinton Nariman to begin shortly.

#SupremeCourt
#JusticeNariman
#Farewell

Event begins.

Adv Nitin Thakker, President, begins his welcome address by wishing Justice Nariman “A very happy birthday!” in English and Sanskrit.

#BombayBarAssociation #BombayHighCourt #farewell

Thakker: You were called “Renaissance man”, “Constitutional Czar”, even “lion who guarded the institution” by the Chief Justice NV Ramana.

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Thakker: Justice Nariman delivered a lecture by citing judgments without holding a piece of paper and gave names and contents of the case accurately..

#BombayBarAssociation #BombayHighCourt #farewell

Thakker: We wish him an equally successful third innings in whatever he does..

#BombayBarAssociation #BombayHighCourt #farewell

Justice Nariman: Mr President, my dear Nitin..
My stint as a priest moulded my life considerably… A Parsi priest who turned a lawyer and did not continue as priest..

#BombayBarAssociation #BombayHighCourt #farewell

Justice Nariman: The tradition stands for a large number of things, but mostly it stands for discipline. As a 12 yr old, my universe was within 1 km of my house, including my school.. But then I was incarcerated into a room with no AC, on a leather bed..

Justice Nariman: My father told me recently, that when they left me at the Agyari, I was in tears.
I learnt many lessons.. To not be around children my age, to be by myself.. I was surrounded by people elderly to me.. They were all nice to me.. But it was tough to be a priest..

Justice Nariman: I stood with my priest before the fire with my great grandmother watching me in the audience.. I recited 50 odd chapters/ prayers by memory..
Very shortly after my priesthood, I was taken to meet Jamshedji Kanga..

Justice Nariman: He was on his death bed, he died two months later.. The moment my father said “I made my son a priest”, his eyes lit up.. He asked him “how many chapters?” I told him.. He said, “It is 13 more than me, you have to be 13 times better than me..

Justice Nariman: It helped with my memory, but it did not help with my comparative understanding of the religion..
I was asked about my religion, and I could not answer, because what I knew was all rote..

Justice Nariman: But that taught me a lesson, to understand and read the translations of what I memorised.
One of the first texts was Bhagwad Gita.. I may have understood some, may still not have understood some.
I have found our texts to be abstract, abstruse and difficult..

Justice Nariman: For the first time, I was impressed with our own faith.. after having read most faiths.. armed with this, I had stopped praying, and then I started praying..
The inner fire is not just verse by verse translation, but it is trying to bunch verses together.

Justice Nariman: I wish Mahataman Gandhi was alive to conduct his prayer meetings with his discussions on religion.. When it comes to the ethically part, as you sow so shall you reap..

Justice Nariman: What this gave me was a rudder..

Justice Nariman: In Harvard, there were people from all over the world. You had to look after yourself, fend yourself. I majored in constitutional law which helped me as a lawyer definitely as a judge.
The American Constitution is the oldest written constitution.

Justice Nariman: We had a teacher Richard Parker.. I also took Constitutional Law and minority issues. It was failure to deal with Black people issues despite having American constitution..

Justice Nariman: I actually found three provisions which provided for slavery. The seeds of the slavery were laid in the constitution. The 13, 14, 15th amendment did away with slavery, but not discrimination.

Justice Nariman: Constitution and Press was another judgment.. It was taught by a journalist not even a lawyer.. This helped me writing the Shreya Singhal case which struck down 66A of the IT Act.

Justice Nariman: Just as I was interested in learning the racial discrimination of the USA, one of my teachers was interested in the racial discrimination of India.. It was a fruitful experience.

Justice Nariman: I had jurisprudence.. The professor who taught that also taught the same subject to my daughter. I also took Dharmashastra law.. an esoteric subject. Harvard equipped you..

Justice Nariman: the more diverse you study, the more you take up things outside of law, the more it helps you with the law..

Justice Nariman: One realises that there is huge interconnection with every part of the law.. Even though they are all distinct. My advice to youngsters is do as much diverse studies as you can.. If you can do Science before Law, do it..

Justice Nariman: The three years in Bombay were fun years.. Three years in Shriram college were fun. I courted my wife and got married to her.. There was more ‘courtship’ than ‘court’!

Justice Nariman: I remember a lecture I gave in Bombay.. I remember looking at the portrait of John Peter Grand which hangs in the Central Court. The dissent on the review of the Sabrimala judgment, I quoted from a PB Shah book..

Justice Nariman: The second speech was KT Desai memorial was on the four dissenters of Supreme Court. The first book took up 30 yrs to write. The second and third books were thanks to COVID-19.

Justice Nariman: In the first 6 week of the pandemic, we were incarcerated with nothing to do. I did intense research. And I wrote this book.

Justice Nariman: It will be heartening to inform that it may take time for this particular view, which was most courageous view to stand out, in every case, the dissenting opinion has to be correct over time.

Justice Nariman: This book should be out tomorrow and it is based on my lecture in the KT Desai lecture.

Justice Nariman: I have called Justice Fazal Ali as “The Prophet”, Justice Bose as “The Laws of Literature”, Chief Justice Subba Rao as the “Man imbued with Fundamental Rights” and finally Justice Hidayatullah as “The Scholar Judge”

Justice Nariman: To end this talk, may I thank you all for inviting me.. Bombay Bar is the leading bar of the nation for so many years.. That is because there are layers in this association.. There are seniors and juniors.. Long live the Bombay Bar!

Sr Adv Janak Dwarkadas: It is indeed a pleasure to bid farewell to “Ro”.. the most gifted souls I have known..
Quotes Shakespeare - “Be not afraid of greatness, some achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon him”.
Ro is all three..

Dwarkadas: Ro was gifted and has been gifted with 4 different compartments and each is store of immense memory. He has an elephantine memory for world history, western classical, comparative religion and knowledge of law. To that he has added his scholarly judgments.

Dwarkadas: Each of his judgment is a masterpiece, extremely well researched, and a delight to read.
I had asked him when he was appointed judge.. “How he thought, he would managed…

Dwarkadas: sitting on a bench for 5 hours, listening to advs whose advocacy standards were no where near where he would be”. He said, “I took oath that I will be kind judge and considerate judge and I will show it the most to the juniors who practice before me.”

Dwarkadas: I vouch of the fact that he followed his promise.. It must not have been easy knowing Ro as I did. That shows what discipline can do.

In the 6 weeks that he was not permitted to sit as judge, he told me himself, that he spent 12-14 hours researching on the books.

Dwarkadas: It is only a man like Ro who could do this.. I only pity the junior, the only junior who was stuck with the research and the steno who took down things at break-neck speed.
But I am sure the book will be a treasure trout!

Dwarkadas: I am sure retirement will only be a comma in his life.. He will have far greater knowledge, far greater skills..

Sr Adv Navroz Seervai: I wished Rohinton yesterday, because I wasn’t sure if I could do so today..
When I spoke to him when he became Solicitor General.. Where do I begin to tell the story of a friendship of 50 odd years..

Seervai: I was 6, he was 7, when we were friends because of our mothers. He has grown to be a giant in the legal field..
Be it sport, history, music, religions, he is cornucopia of knowledge. And that he uses at the appropriate time, at the appropriate place..

Seervai (on his memory): We were engaged in the luxury tax matter in SC, challenging various state legislations. Harish asked Rohinton if he remembered this particular judgment, which he wanted to cite.

Seervai: Rohinton rattled the entire judgment, with the page and the part which Harish should want to cite.

Seervai: I wish he gets to spend more time with his family, to travel which has forsaken for 7 years.. And as Dwarkadas said, we will get to meet him more often now.

Sr Adv Darius Khambata: I have known Rohinton from my childhood.. I call him a genius, and I use this word very responsibly! I do not use it often. The man is an unbelievable genius. The range is from religion, to music, to history, to electric toy trains, to coin collection.

Khambata: His knowledge is mind boggling. And I might sound ecstatic, but I cannot help it.
He had independence, integrity and quality.
Any lawyer knew that if we go into this man’s court we will get justice as we deserve as per law. No political, religious bias..

Khambata: He harnessed the talent, to look for areas and issues of laws which require enunciation.. He has actually cleaned up the law in areas like IBC and arbitration..

Khambata: He has given hope to young lawyers that this honest, plain speaking man could deliver justice at the highest court of the country.

Event concluded.