Senior Advocate Arvind Datar's Review of The Book 'Soli Sorabjee: A Great Maestro' By Sudhish Pai

Mr. Pai has arranged the book into four parts viz: a fairly comprehensive and interesting biographical sketch of Sorabjee, notes on important judgments in cases where he had appeared, a few of his legal opinions and articles, and articles by various contributors recollecting their association with Sorabjee. The second part contains notes on 43 judgments, which starts with a Constitution Bench decision of 1967 in Bhagat Raja v. Union of India, AIR 1967 SC 1606 and ends with Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. Late Soli Sorabjee joined the Bar in the early 50’s and practised for almost 70 years. During this time, he appeared in cases concerning almost all branches of law including those relating to taxation, election and, of course, constitutional law. He was particularly a keen student and a master of the law relating to freedom of speech and contempt. After a very successful stint at the Bombay High Court, Sorabjee shifted his practice to the Supreme Court where he remained amongst the top lawyers for almost four decades. His arguments shaped our Constitution, particularly strengthening the federal structure of our Republic.

The section containing Sorabjee’s articles has an erudite unpublished article on dissenting opinions by judges. Here, we are reminded of the great dissents of Lord Atkin in Liversidge v. Anderson, 1942 AC 206 and of Justice Harlan in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537. Time has shown that Lord Atkin’s dissent restricting the power of the Secretary of State to order preventive detention is the correct legal position. Similarly, the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson was later overruled in the historic judgment of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483. Thereafter, Sorabjee refers to the great Indian dissents starting from Justice Fazl Ali’s stunning contrary view in A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27. In these dissents, the great judges have looked beyond the facts of a particular case and evaluated the impact of their decision on the future evolution of the Constitution. Unfortunately, at present, we see a steady decline in the number of dissenting judgments even though, over the years, there has been an increase in the number of judges in the Supreme Court.

In the last section of the book, there are 30 articles written by legal luminaries recollecting their association with Sorabjee. A few published articles have been re-published with permission and others have been written exclusively for this book. Former President K.R. Narayanan’s article on his interactions with Sorabjee, who was then the Attorney-General for India, shows his commitment to constitutionalism. The Hon’ble Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG has written an Australian Tribute wherein he highlights Sorabjee’s article on the S.R. Bommai decision published in (1994) 3 SCC J-1. This is a must read for all students of law. Interestingly, Justice Kirby says that he came across this article in Justice Rohinton Nariman’s book Discordant Notes: The Voice of Dissent in the Court of Last Resort.

Articles written by Shri K.K. Venugopal and Shri G.E. Vahanvati, former Attorneys-General for India, contain touching personal anecdotes on their association with him. Shri Venugopal believes that Sorabjee played a role in his appointment as the second Additional Solicitor General of India and led to his shifting practice to New Delhi in 1979. Shri Vahanvati takes us through lesser-known aspects of Sorabjee’s life including his love for horse racing and jazz. Their court room conversations in horse racing jargon are hilarious!

Mr. Pai has undoubtedly come out with a great book that is a fitting tribute to Sorabjee’s eventful journey in the law. The book should be a compulsory read for all, especially young students of law as it contains invaluable lessons on what it takes to reach the pinnacle of success.