The Lawyer Who Made Flying Visits To Courts

In the late fifties and sixties of the last century, a cherubic barrister would fly his L5 two seater plane all the way from Patna to Delhi with a refuelling halt at Lucknow. The second seat was occupied either by his white bearded senior munshi Majid, or his clean-shaven, janeu-wearing, dhoti-clad junior munshi Lakhan. He parked his little aircraft at the Safdarjung airport and went to argue his appeals in the Supreme Court. He would also fly in it from Patna to district towns in Bihar and present day Jharkhand for trials, if they had a place for him to land. The clients who came to receive him there would sometimes not be able to arrange a motor car to take him to court, and he happily rode pillion on their bicycles. This unusual lawyer was Akbar Imam, whose birth centenary falls today, the 11th of August.

Akbar was a scion of the famed Imam family, which has been written about by Justice Sudhir Katriar, the historian of the Patna High Court and now of other major courts of India in his book, “The Patna High Court: A Century of Glory” (Universal, 2015). He says that among the families who were pillars of the Patna High Court, the greatest of them all was the Imam family, for their illustrious achievements in the field of law as lawyers or judges, in diverse other fields, and for their integrity. He was born in Patna to Syed Jafar Imam and Asma Imam. Justice Jafar Imam was the senior-most puisne judge of the Supreme Court, and was in line to become the Chief Justice of India after Justice B.P. Sinha's retirement in February 1964, but his illness came in the way, and Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar became the Chief Justice of India earlier than when he would have ordinarily reached that position. Justice Jafar Imam himself was the son of Sir Ali Imam, barrister, who was successively a High Court judge, a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, and Prime Minister (or Chief Minister) of Hyderabad State. There were other distinguished Imams who were also in Sudhir Katriar's mind when he described them in glowing terms, but I am omitting reference to them for reasons of space.

Akbar Imam schooled at St. George's, Mussoorie, and then went on to study science at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then turned to the law, and was called to the Bar from the Middle Temple. He returned to Patna to practise, and in course of time, had a flourishing practice specialising in criminal law. There were only a few barristers in Patna and the few occupants of the Bar room included those senior to him like the formidable Dharamshila Lal, the first woman lawyer of the Patna High Court, and K.D. Chatterji, who later became Advocate-General of Bihar. Younger colleagues included Justice Leila Seth, who later became the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court, and retired as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

Leila and Akbar became close friends, and the former's autobiography, “On Balance” (Penguin/Viking, 2003), has fond reminiscences of Akbar. “He was unrestrained in his manner”, says Leila, “and when he saw me from afar he would shout 'Leila Bella' much to my embarrassment”. She says that when Akbar first started practising law, he used to sit in his chambers reading poetry and eating chocolate, hoping for a client to appear, but his astute clerk was not amused. “He would give potential clients glowing accounts of how good and serious a lawyer his master was. But when the client would see round-faced Akbar sitting and eating a bar of chocolate, he would think he was a child and run away.” Leila also recalls with gratitude the guidance he gave her when she had tough briefs to handle.

There is an interesting story about Akbar appearing in his father's court (in those days, close relatives could and did appear before judges). Katriar recalls an occasion when Akbar had six cases listed in his father's court. He says that Akbar asked the judge to transfer the cases to another court, and when the judge wanted to know why, he replied that his colleagues at the bar were heard saying that he was bound to succeed because the judge was his father. The father declined the request, heard all the six cases, granted relief in four and declined relief in two. The bar had no cause for complaint.

Apart from his love for flying, Akbar was a keen oarsman. He had his own boat anchored on the banks of the Ganga, at the Bankipore Club, Patna, and would row his boat on the river. He was a proper Englishman in deportment and conduct, and Leila Seth says that while K.D. Chatterji was an Englishman inside, “Akbar was an Englishman both inside and out”. But that did not come in the way of his practising like leading Indian lawyers of yesteryear did, with living accommodation for clerks and other staff, and boarding and lodging facilities for clients who came from out of town. He kept an impeccable house with a properly laid dinner table every night, guests or no guests. He was eloquent, and often recited poetry. He was musically talented too. He played the grand piano every evening after winding up his work in the chamber, and would often sing Belafonte songs to his dinner guests.

Akbar died prematurely in London, when he was barely 43, on dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant. “He was too vibrant, too young to die”, Leila lamented. The family legacy in law was kept up by his daughter, my dear friend Tehmina Imam Punvani. She has practised in Lucknow, Delhi and Nainital, and is among the earliest senior advocates to be designated by the newly created Uttarakhand High Court by Justice S.H. Kapadia, when he was Chief Justice of that High Court. Tehmina, who was only 12 when her father died, remembers her father fondly as a happy, cheerful person, a “fun person”.

Author is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India