Thread by @sheshapatangi1

Is it a coincidence that Valmiki Jayanti & Birthday of Keshav Parasaran falls on same day?

Its an honour for me to write a brief biography on a living legend on his 95th Birthday.

His courtroom orations are often lectures in Hindu scriptures. So much so, that SC judge and

former Chief Justice of Madras High Court Sanjay Kishan Kaul referred him as the “Pitamah of Indian Bar for his contribution to the law without compromising with his dharma”.

Parasaran’s spiritual relationship with Shree Rama powered him throughout the course of this case,

his blend of spirituality and legal knowledge helped Hindus to finally reclaim the Ram Janmabhoomi.

When he turned 85, Parasaran decided to devote more time towards his spiritual and literary pursuits. The staunch devotee of Shri Ram, returned to the court after a long gap to

fight the Ram Janmabhoomi temple case on behalf of the Hindu side and also involved in the Sabarimala case to preserve the centuries old tradition of this unique temple. He believes it was the will of the Lord that he was chosen to appear in these causes.

Born in Tamil Nadu’s

Srirangam in 1927, Parasaran’s father Kesava Aiyengar was also a lawyer & a Vedic scholar.

Parasaran’s three sons, Mohan, Satish and Balaji, are also lawyers. Mohan Parasaran briefly served as Solicitor General in the UPA-2 regime. The family’s fourth generation has also joined

the Bar.
Parasaran started practice before the Supreme Court in 1958.

During the Emergency, he was Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, in 1980 was appointed Solicitor General of India.
Politically, Parasaran has been sought after by almost every administration since the 1970s.

Despite this, he did not shy away from disagreeing with the political leadership. In 1985, as Solicitor General of India, he advised the government to not act on the show-cause notice issued to demolish TheIndianExpress building as it was legally untenable.

However, when the

#IndiraGandhi government ignored his opinion, he refused to defend the government in court and offered to resign if he was forced to appear. The government, despite his public statement, not only kept him in office but promoted him as Attorney General of India in two months and

K Parasaran served as the AG from 1983 to 1989.
He was awarded the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan in 2003 and 2011. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the Indian President in 2012 for a period of six years.

Vajpayee govt appointed him as member of the drafting and

editorial committee tasked with reviewing the working of the Constitution.
Since 2016, Parasaran’s appearances in court have been rare. He has only picked two cases after that – the Sabarimala case and the Ayodhya dispute.
During the Sabarimala trial Parasaran submitted that

one must not proceed with the presumption that, “the ancients knew nothing and that we know better in all aspects of life” & argued that the celibate nature of the deity and not misogyny was the basis for the practice barring entry of women. He had added that Lord Ayyappa’s

Naishtika Brahmachari avatar is protected by the constitution.

Parasaran’s most important engagement in recent days has been to serve as the lead counsel for the Hindu side in the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid case, his dedication to the case can be inferred by the fact that

every day he worked on every aspect of the case before the hearing began and well into the evening after it concluded.
During the course of the hearing Parasaran argued that historic wrong was committed by Babar 433 years ago when he constructed a Mosque at Lord Ram’s birthplace

and it needed to corrected.
One of the most notable arguments by Parasaran in this case was, “Muslims can pray in any other mosque in Ayodhya. There are 55-60 mosques in Ayodhya alone. But, for Hindus this is the birth place of Lord Ram, which we cannot change”.

Another notable

exchange during the proceedings was Parasaran asserting, “I will say once a temple always a temple”, in response to the Muslim side’s argument of “once a mosque, always a mosque”.
Parasaran in the interview with Swarajya said “I took to spend more time at Chennai, which was

principally in order to be physically near the Temple of Lord Parthasarathy at Triplicane in Chennai - the Lord to whom I owe everything in life; coincided with my nomination to the Rajya Sabha as a Member. I therefore had to fulfil my duties as a Member of the Rajya Sabha and

continued to divide my time between Parliament and the Hon’ble Supreme Court. It was only in the middle of 2018, after my Rajya Sabha term, that I could finally act upon my desire to shift to Chennai”.
“I have been a staunch devotee of Lord Ram since 1957. In my daily puja,

I read a few sargas of the Valmiki Ramayana, which I continue to do till date. I have not stopped this practise even for a single day since I had begun reading the Valmiki Ramayana.
I have not only appeared in Ram Janmabhoomi case, but I have also appeared in the Ram Setu case

against the proposed project".

As regards Sabarimala case, The established custom and usage in matters of worship of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala is a matter of religious faith, and is not to be ignored. The religious faith and the temple legend, has to be respected, it is not a

practice which is obnoxious.
In relation to worship of a deity manifested in the form of idols in public temples, there is an object of worship, a worshipper and the manner of worship. The deity at Sabarimala is a manifestation of Lord Ayyappa as a Naishtika Brahmachari.

There are different kinds of Brahmacharya Ashramas. Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala practices asceticism in the form of complete abstinence. It is based on such belief, without in any manner affecting the dignity of any person of either sex, that the practice in this particular

temple has been established over a long period of time.
It is my personal view that in such cases, the Courts should generally refrain from exercising jurisdiction. To test such matters of faith and religious belief, the Constitution has not established ecclesiastical courts

to go into questions of religious practices including worship based on belief or faith.
It may not be entirely correct to state that I came out of retirement to appear in the Ram Janmabhoomi and Sabarimala cases. I believe that it is the will of the Lord that I was chosen to

appear in these causes. As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita, I am only a निमित्त मात्र(nimitha-matram).
This Image of Parasaran who fought the aggressive liberal, left and congress lawyers with smile and compassion in the Supreme Court sitting at home and seeing the Bhumi puja

in Ayodhya. We should bow our heads to the nonagenarian legal genius who got us the Ram Janmasthaan.

#KeshavParasaran
#RamJanmaBhoomi
#ValmikiJayanti

#VANDEMATRAM