In Bombay, in the 1980s, there were no stringent law entrance tests which determined which law school or college those desirous of ‘learning the law’ got into.
We all managed to walk into good colleges with minimal efforts and average marks and we all managed to pass without attending a majority of the lectures.
Of course we attended the lectures of the legends of Government Law College who were seasoned campaigners but skipped the drab sermons of the ‘also rans’ who occupied posts for reasons other than merit.
Only insomaniacs attended their lectures … more as a cure than for any enlightenment … and they did so more in search of therapy than knowledge.
Most of our time was spent outside classrooms in extra-curricular activities of which there was no dearth, at least in the Government Law College.
Come exam time, those who were serious about learning the law depended on canteen friends, failed philosophers and helpful guides known as ‘Jhabvalas’.
Others, who had no intention of burdening the noble profession with their presence after studying law, went through the motions for the sake of the label of an additional law degree on future visiting cards.
They relied on the pocket-friendly ‘three test papers’ or TTPs.
These were minimalistic booklets containing readymade answers to likely exam questions.
They were also the slightly more elaborate ‘master keys’ to success in law exams written by various struggling lawyers under an omnibus pen-name ‘gyani’.
I befriended one ‘gyani’ later on at the Bar.
He was really quite knowledgeable and in due course adorned the Bombay High Court Bench.
The ‘Jhabvalas’ were more detailed than the ‘Gyanis’.
They were a cross between textbooks and guides with a smattering of relevant case-law.
They were compiled by a well-known law professor.
All these mugging aides could be returned in good condition to the book-sellers after the exams got over and a 50 percent refund obtained.
Subsequently, the aforementioned items were resold, following the same criteria, to the next batch being churned out by the system.
Of course, conditions applied.
The first condition was that one needed to pass the exams to be able to pass on these legal ‘assistants’ to those who would now have more use for them.
We all remember our Jhabvalas fondly.
Much after our privileged batch had exited the hallowed portals of the historic Government Law College, there were attempts at a hostile takeover of the ‘short-cut to success market’ by upstarts known as ‘Mokals’, but those who preferred to be in Blue Chip company, usually stuck to their Jhabvalas.
Mokals too had their own special clientele.
These were mainly those students who found the English of Jhabvalas to be too ‘high’ for their liking.
I am told that the Mokals eventually ended up upstaging the TTPs.
Jhabvalas continue as undisguised blessings to law students (at least in Amchi Mumbai) till this day.
One is likely to find more Jhabvala-trained lawyers on the original side and more Mokals on the appellate side.
Our dear high court continues to benefit from both sides.
With such ‘training’ we entered the noble profession.
I have no hesitation in admitting that compared to the privileged few with a legal background, we commoners were either uncooked or under-cooked for practice.
But sooner or later, everybody who was hellbent on gracing the noble profession managed to find some placement.
The seniors who were unfortunate enough to be saddled with under-cooked products like us had to face a lot of embarrassment when we accompanied them for conferences with the haughty learned counsel who seemed hooked onto someone called Halsbury.
Our exposure till then had mainly been to Cadbury.
Law schools nowadays lay a great deal of emphasis on knowledge but in those days of ‘only physical and no digital’, knowledge did grant some interim reliefs but ignorance was always bliss.
Two recollections should be enough to illustrate this.
Once, a junior from our batch was asked by his busy senior (who had filed a writ petition for a client and engaged a senior advocate to argue it) to accompany the said senior advocate to the court and generally ‘be of assistance’ to him.
Our friend, who had by now forgotten the scripts by-hearted from the TTPs, was very excited at the prospect of assisting a real senior advocate in a real courtroom at last!
Just before the hearing, the senior, who was known for his short temper, told this junior: “Go quickly to the library and fetch Ajay Hasia.”
Imagining that Ajay Hasia was some other junior, or maybe the senior’s clerk or peon, this junior went on asking around in the library where Ajay Hasia usually sat!
Either no one out there knew … or they wouldn’t tell.
Meanwhile, the case was called out in the court, the unassisted senior advocate was forced to seek time and came back to the library like a raging bull.
Imagine what must have happened when the junior announced to him that Ajay Hasia was not on his seat and had perhaps gone to some court!
Such was the need for legal slaves in those days that my friend did not lose his apprenticeship despite this gaffe!
I vividly recall another similar incident many years later.
But this time the shoe was on the other foot!
Still, ignorance was bliss.
A barrister, renowned in the sixties for taking up lost social interest causes and environmental matters had almost ceased active court practice by the eighties.
Nevertheless, some residents of the suburb wherein he resided approached him to ask him how to get rid of some hawkers who had set up shop on the pavements outside their buildings.
The old barrister told them to file a writ petition seeking directions to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay to remove them.
After their fruitful conference with the semi-retired barrister, they approached me to represent them.
They told me that this barrister had suggested my name to them saying that I was one of those rare ones who, like him,would be ‘public spirited’ enough to accept clients’ ‘blessings only’ as fees.
Hence, they came to me with as much excitement as guests would have while attending lavish weddings, where the prospect of an abundant and opulent feast is promised, with the only requirement being “blessings only” as payment.
When I studied the issue I realised that out of the hawkers they intended to target some were licenced hawkers,others held pitch licences and very few were wholly unauthorised.
I, therefore, informed the clients that hawkers too now had some rights to ply their trade and that ‘Sodan Singh’ was an authority on this point.
They were very disappointed. I was nothing like what the old barrister had described. Instead of accepting the authority of their old benefactor I believed in some Sodan Singh!
They went and informed the old barrister. He forthwith rang me in a huff.
“Who is this Sodan Singh? Where does he practise? Never heard of him! What right does he have to think he is an authority? Hawkers and encroachers have absolutely no rights! Give me this Sodan’s phone number and I will give him a piece of my mind. That will put him in his place! You just go ahead and file the case.”
The old barrister’s outburst against Sodan Singh brought back to me fond memories of my friend’s search for Ajay Hasia. I just smiled and said, “Okay, barrister saheb.”
‘Ajay Hasia’ and ‘Sodan Singh’ continue to be housed comfortably in separate volumes of our law reports. The fact that some may still be unaware of their existence has never made any difference to them.
That is why I say, while knowledge may grant some interim relief sometimes, ignorance is always bliss.
