THE role which mentors play in the life of any junior lawyer cannot be underestimated.
A man is known by the company he keeps and a junior is known by the senior he had. They say winning horses usually come groomed from good stables.
I was fortunate as a junior to have met and benefited from the guidance that I received from many mentors, though I cannot vouch that I was stable enough to have been part of any reputed stable.
Today, I recollect one such mentor.
He was a soft-spoken, well-mannered gentleman who passed on in 2008 but is fondly remembered by many even today.
M.A. Rane
His full name, apparently, was Mallu Appa Rane, but he was popularly known as advocate M.A. Rane. He was not an officially designated 'senior' but one of the several un-designated gems from my junior days who were respected considerably more by the Bar and Bench than many officially designated ones.
The character and grace that these gentlemen wore with ease were more impressive than any conferred gown.
My first meeting with him happened like this: advocate Indira Jaising (as she was then) had just started India's first legal monthly magazine entitled From the Lawyer's Collective, popularly known as the 'lawyers' magazine'. I came to be associated with the magazine almost since its inception.
A long article of mine on the need to make the legal language simple and jargon-free was carried as the lead article in one of the issues of that magazine in the very first year of its publication.
Advocate M.A. Rane, himself a prolific writer, also used to contribute the occasional piece to the magazine. He was also a subscriber.
After he read my article, he started asking around: "Who is this lawyer?"
His enquiries soon led him to track me down in court. He introduced himself and very caringly enquired about my background, education, plans and so on; and promised to remain in touch.
I did not know much about him at that time but gradually we became good friends (despite him being much older) as we shared a love for reading, writing and books.
Very soon, I became a recipient of some gifts from him in the form of literature published by the Indian Renaissance Institute and booklets published by organisations such as People's Union for Civil Liberties and People's Union of Democratic Rights.
'Rane Saheb' (that is how I addressed him) was an enthusiastic supporter of these organisations.
Rane Saheb was very fond of lecturing from public platforms. He was by nature a quintessential activist, but he preferred to call himself a 'Royist' and a 'Radical Humanist'.
His guru was V.M. Tarkunde, who had been a former judge of the Bombay High Court. Even at his age, senior advocate Tarkunde remained active in the Supreme Court.
In the appellate side's Bar, advocates M.A. Rane, C.R. Dalvi and K.Y. Mandlik were known as 'disciples' of V.M. Tarkunde, and followed an ideology expounded by the eminent leftist revolutionary and thinker M.N. Roy.
Radicalising humans
Rane Saheb once asked me if I would file an appearance for a supporting respondent in a matter wherein he was representing the petitioner.
I readily agreed.
After the matter was concluded in the petitioner's favour, Rane Saheb ensured that the client I had represented paid me ₹1,500. (This was a good amount in those days for juniors on the appellate side.)
After the client left, Rane Saheb promptly asked me for ₹500. I was a bit taken aback. Instinctively, I presumed that this must be that famous 'referral fee' about which I had heard so much but never had occasion either to give or take.
Imagine my surprise when he put the amount in his shirt pocket and pulled out a receipt book from the commodious pocket of his black jacket.
He then wrote out a receipt for ₹500 as a 'donation' towards a 'life membership' fee of the Indian Renaissance Institute.
Then he told me, "Now you are part of our movement … and you will start getting copies of our magazine, 'The Radical Humanist'".
Rane Saheb used to follow my writings in the Lawyer's Collective magazine with avid interest and loved to indulge in discussions on current social, economic and political issues.
He urged me to write essays for his Radical Humanist magazine but I did not do so then as I felt there was no space for anything light-hearted in that periodical which was loaded with heavy stuff.
Interestingly, of late, some of my satirical poems have been published in that magazine. I feel Rane Saheb, if he was still around, would have been delighted.
But let us get back to the story.
When I shared the information about the involuntary 'donation' with some friends in the Bar library, they had a good laugh.
A senior colleague, advocate Rajiv Mohite, who himself had been a junior in Rane Saheb's chambers much earlier and was a pal of my own senior advocate M.F. Saldanha, joked about this by cautioning me in a mock tone: "Beware of Radical Humanists. You may be stuck with them for life." Everyone laughed.
I remember another question which advocate Mohite, who later became a judge of the Bombay High Court (and passed away a few years ago) had posed back then: "Do you know how Mr Rane has managed to combine radical humanism with the practice of law?"
Before I could say anything, he himself quipped the answer: "He is a humanist in arguments … but a radical when it comes to fees!"
I remember how we all had a good laugh at this wisecrack.
The good and the not-so-good
My senior later informed me that advocate Mohite, by nature and temperament, was the polar opposite of his senior Rane Saheb. Allegedly, after being caught doing some act in Mr Rane's chambers which Mr Rane may not even have imagined doing in the privacy of his home, this junior had been politely asked to quit his chambers.
Incidentally, Justice U.U. Lalit, who later became the Chief Justice of India, had also been Rane Saheb's junior in the Bombay High Court for some time but had shifted base to New Delhi just before I joined the Bombay Bar in 1985.
Rane Saheb was the only advocate who implemented the Bar council's decision to do away with the colonial legacy of addressing high court judges as 'My Lords'. From that day, till he ceased active practice, he used to address all judges only as 'Sir'.
I had asked him, "Isn't 'Sir' also an English appellation which got conferred along with a knighthood?" He said I was right but it will take time for our mindset to adjust to addressing the personages on the Bench simply as 'Mr Judge' or 'Nyaymurti Mahoday!'
Another junior of Rane Saheb who was a few years junior to me at the Bar has imbibed all the ethical, public-spirited qualities of Rane Saheb. After Rane Saheb passed on, this junior carried on most of his legal practice.
In due course, it was rumoured that this junior of Rane Saheb was about to be elevated to the Bench. All his friends and well-wishers at the Bar, including me, were delighted to hear this.
But each time the collegium recommendations were released, his name was missing. He had almost given up hope of being elevated, when, in 2020, by some stroke of good fortune, he finally got the nod and was made a judge of the Bombay High Court. His performance so far makes us feel that Rane Saheb's spirit would be very pleased.
The long shadow of an illustrious senior
I will narrate just one recent incident about this junior to illustrate why I say he is proving to be such a worthy junior of that upright mentor.
This judge was sitting on a division Bench as a junior member with the acting Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court who has now moved to the South as a Chief Justice of another prestigious high court.
Late one evening he received a phone call from an unexpected caller. A former judge of the Bombay High Court who had retired as the Chief Justice of another High Court was on the line.
After a bit of casual small talk, the caller came to the point: "On your board tomorrow, at serial number 35, there is this matter of an influential person known to me. He is a good man and needs to be helped. Please see what you can do for him. Will be good if you can help him."
The junior judge was shocked by the sheer brazenness of this approach. The caller had a reputation for being a wheeler-dealer when he was at the Bar and was considered a surprising addition to the judiciary when he was elevated to the Bench. But he had a pleasant personality and good political connections.
The target of this direct approach was just a junior judge on the Bench having been appointed as an additional judge a mere three years earlier. The caller may have hoped to awe this junior judge but what he overlooked was the fact that this horse was from advocate M.A. Rane's stable.
On the next day, the cause list in that courtroom progressed as usual. But when serial number 35 was called out, the junior judge said, "Not before me".
The acting Chief Justice did not say anything at that time and as per practice directed that the matter be placed before another Bench of which this junior judge was not a member.
However, later on, when the division Bench rose for the day, the acting Chief Justice enquired from his junior colleague just out of curiosity: "Did you know any party in that case at serial number 35 from which you recused?"
The junior judge then disclosed to him the approach made on the previous evening by the retired senior judge.
The acting Chief Justice admired and commended his action: "Good. You did the right thing."
When I heard this story later on the judicial grapevine, my thoughts went back several years to the many interactions I had had with this junior judge's senior colleague and mentor advocate M.A. Rane. He always used to emphasise to us juniors that honesty and ethical values are the greatest treasures of an advocate.
If one reads the anthology of his writings entitled Good Times, Bad Times, Sad Times one will find this theme of values and ethics in all articles.
His junior's conduct once again proved to me that the mentoring juniors receive from seniors during their formative years at the Bar moulds them into what they ultimately become when they start their independent innings at the Bar. It continues to be a guiding light for them even after they get elevated to the Bench.
Elevations of ethical, principled activists who are without the power of pelf or pedigree are becoming increasingly rare as the years go by, but so long as even a few upright individuals continue to escape through the clogged sieve called the 'collegium system' and get appointed as high court judges, I believe there is still a flicker of hope for the judiciary in our country.