A Suitable Boy(394)

Mahesh Kapoor said: ‘There’s that bastard Marh and his pederastic son – I’m surprised they have the brazenness to come to this court again. At least they look worried.’ Then he shook his head, looking equally worried at the thought of an unfavourable outcome.

The court clock struck ten. The pageant of ushers began. The judges followed in sequence. They looked neither at the government lawyers nor at the advocates for the applicants. It was impossible to make out from their expressions what the judgment might be. The Chief Justice looked to left and right, and the chairs were moved forward. The Court Reader called out the numbers of the several conjoined writ petitions listed ‘for pronouncement of judgment’. The Chief Justice looked down at the thick wad of typed pages in front of him, and riffled through them absently. Every eye in court rested on him. He removed the lace doily from the glass in front of him, and took a sip of water.

He turned to the last page of the seventy-five-page judgment, leaned his head to one side, and began reading the operative part of the judgment. He read for less than half a minute, clearly and quickly: ‘The Purva Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act does not contravene any provision of the Constitution and is not invalid. The main application, together with the connected applications, are dismissed. It is our view that parties should bear their own costs, and we order accordingly.’

He signed the judgment and handed it to the judge on his right, the senior puisne judge, who signed and handed it across the Chief Justice to the next-most-senior judge; thus the document ricocheted from side to side until it was handed down to the Court Reader, who stamped it with the seal of the court bearing the legend: ‘High Court of Judicature, Brahmpur’. Then the judges rose, for that was the only item of business for which the full bench of five had been constituted. The chair shuffle was reversed, and the judges disappeared behind the dull scarlet curtain to the right, followed by the glittering ushers.

As was the custom of the Brahmpur High Court, all four puisne judges accompanied the Chief Justice to his chambers; then they walked to the chambers of the next-most-senior judge; and so on in order. Finally, Mr Justice Maheshwari walked back to his chambers alone. Having thrashed the issues out for weeks in person and on paper no one had been in the mood for further conversation; the black-gowned procession had been almost funereal. As for Mr Justice Maheshwari, he was still puzzled about the document to which he had just affixed his signature, but he was a little closer to understanding Sita’s position in the Ramayana.

To say that there was pandemonium in court would be an understatement. As soon as the last judge disappeared from view, litigants and lawyers, press and public alike, began cheering and screaming, embracing each other or weeping. Firoz and his father hardly had the chance to look at each other when each was surrounded by a mixed group of lawyers and landlords and journalists – and all coherent speech became impossible. Firoz looked grim.

The Raja of Marh, like everyone else, had risen when the judges rose. But aren’t they going to read the judgment? he thought. Have they postponed it? He could not grasp that so much significance could be contained in so few words. But the joy on the government side and the despair and consternation on his own brought home to him the full import of the baleful mantra. His legs gave way; he pitched forward onto the row of chairs in front of him and collapsed on the ground; and darkness came over his eyes.





11.31


TWO days later, the Advocate-General of Purva Pradesh, Mr Shastri, carefully perused the full text of the judgment which had been brought out by the High Court printing press. He was pleased that it was unanimous. It was tightly written and clear, and would, he believed, withstand the inevitable appeal to the Supreme Court, especially now that the additional, recently erected wall of the First Amendment stood around it.

The contentions based on delegation of legislation, lack of public purpose, and so on, had been dealt with and dismissed.

On the basic question – the one that could easily have gone either way in Mr Shastri’s view – the judges had decided thus: The ‘rehabilitation grant’ and ‘compensation’ both together formed the true recompense, the ‘actual compensation’ for the land taken over. This, according to the judges, put both items beyond constitutional challenge on the grounds either of inadequacy or of discrimination. Had the government’s carefully planned contention that the two items were different been upheld, the rehabilitation grant would not have enjoyed the protection afforded under the Constitution to ‘compensation’, and would therefore have been struck down under its provision for the ‘equal protection of the laws’.