Ram Jethmalani

Fertile land of Sindh once again proved its nature of being the land of genius & great personalities, this time it was Shikarpur, where on 14 September 1923, in the house of Shri Boolchand Gurmukhdas Jethmalani, Shrimati Parbati Boolchand has given birth to male child. Intelligence of the kid can be judged from his triple promotion in the school and passing the L. L. B. at the tender age of 17 years.

We are talking about none else but Shri Ram Jethmalani, for whom Chief justice of Sindh was forced to pass a special resolution about the rules, so the 17-year young Jethmalani, can join the Bar.

In the year 1947 on September 5, he got married with Ratna and God has blessed them with two sons and two daughters. After the partition his family shifted to Bombay [Mumbai] and soon he become famous for his cross examination in the court room. His decision of being present as the defense council for the smuggler Haji Mastan brought him first fame and the case of Kehar Singh [the man behind the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi] has made him front page news of almost all the newspapers for many days.

Today it is said that he is the number one criminal lawyer of the country. Many adjectives say hot temper, witty, hilarious, Amazing, interesting, ever young etc. of English dictionary finds association with the personality of this Sindhi lawyer and most controversial Indian Politicians.

His wisdom and understanding of law and constitution is such high that when in 1980’s constitution of newly formed Bhartiya Janta Party was written he was involved in it with Sunder Singh Bhandari & Sikandar Bakhat. In the field of politics, he had crossed many mile stones including the office of law ministry at center. [Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs 1996]. Some of famous incident from his term in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at center in the ministerial capacity are still corner talk in the meetings of BJP leaders.

When he became Minister for Urban Development, DDA [Delhi Development Authority] was facing several court cases related with the allotments of flats and was paying very heavily in the form of fees to lawyers. Jethmalani took the DDA officials to these colonies asked about the availability of electricity and water, without which no one will go there for living. He forced the system to work for the welfare of common citizen and save the money and time. He was also in the headlines of newspapers and other media for asking daily ten question to Rajiv Gandhi.

Ram Jethmalani as a person is famous for his hilarious (laughter) moods, even being engaged with one of highly protocol restricted and since profession related with court room, he always stresses for and never missed a lighter moment of life. In the political arena of country many hilarious incidents created by him are recalled from time to time.

Even his resignation from the post of Union Law Minister was also an eventful and hilarious happening at least for the law students of Pune – Maharashtra, Jethmalani was stepping down from the Lonavala hills to reach Pune for this meeting. On the way of this journey, he got message from Prime Minister asking to resign him. On reaching Pune he delayed the interaction with Law student and entered in the auditorium only after the fax of his resignation was sent to P M O. When he starts his speech his first words were “friends please excuse me because I am not the same Jethmalani for whom you gathered here. You have waited for over an hour for the Law Minister Jethmalani but sorry to inform I don’t hold the post at this moment.”

Common people and Law students in auditorium took this as yet another hilarious talk of Jethmalani and were able to find seriousness only after coming out. Throughout his political career his always remained in center of conflicts for his state forward comments on the given situations.

some years back he said I am young of 85 years and that he still appeared naughty and eager to share experiences with girlfriends and full of enthusiasm to talk and discuss the topic even with young modern boy. This is unfortunate that just 6 days ahead of his 96th birthday on the 8 September 2019 Ram Jethmalani passed away after being hospitalization of almost two weeks.