Soli Sorabjee(1930-2021): A outstanding life in legislation, champion of civil liberties and press freedom

Covid robbed former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee the chance to look at his ninetieth birthday in March final 12 months. It was an occasion that he was wanting ahead to with a lot anticipation, and may have celebrated a milestone in a very outstanding life in legislation, human rights, press freedom and humanity. But with the variety of Covid circumstances rising sharply, the celebratory dinner needed to be rapidly cancelled two days earlier than the occasion. This 12 months, there have been festivities however on a subdued word, and the second was by no means correctly celebrated as Sorabjee deserved.
Sorabjee was a heat, genteel, mental practitioner of the legislation of a unique period the place details and the interpretation of the statutes had been the overriding consideration. Where arguments had been laced with wit, polish and erudition. For Sorabjee, the legislation was a calling and cash was by no means the prime motive, as it’s for a lot of main legal professionals at the moment. A Parsi who educated on the Bombay Law College, he was a up to date of others from the Bombay establishment equivalent to Fali Nariman, Ashok Desai, and Murli Bhandare. The luminaries from the Bombay Bar then dominated the Supreme Court.
Sorabjee who adopted within the footsteps of his mentor Nani Palkhivala, made a big contribution to the interpretation of constitutional legislation in impartial India. He was a champion of free speech and residents’ civil liberties, and assisted Palkhivala within the landmark Golaknath and Keshavananda Bharati circumstances. The judgments in these two circumstances protected the rights of the person, whether or not prince or pauper, in opposition to the state.
The genial Sorabjee typically provided his providers without spending a dime, working professional bono. During the Emergency, he offered authorized help to many political prisoners arrested underneath the draconian MISA. It was a difficult time, and he lived underneath the shadow of doable imprisonment. He as soon as recalled to me jokingly that his younger son Hormazd was terrified that he would carry shame on the household by being despatched to jail. Palkhivala and he had been left shocked by the extraordinary suspension of elementary rights together with the precise to life by the Supreme Court in the course of the Emergency in a 4-1 order within the habeas corpus matter. Sorabjee firmly believed judges after retirement ought to stay away from political positions within the Rajya Sabha and elsewhere.
Sorabjee lent his providers without spending a dime to Sikhs in Delhi after the 1984 riots. Another vital case he represented was the milestone St Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad petition in opposition to Gujarat state, which upheld the rights of minority our bodies to arrange and run their very own instructional establishments.
The Maneka Gandhi passport case of 1979 the place the courts held that an individual’s elementary proper entails that she or he can’t be denied a passport with out ascribing a cause was argued when Sorabjee was Additional Solicitor General.

In 1989, he fought the dismissal of then Chief Minister S R Bommai by Karnataka Governor Buta Singh underneath orders from a hostile Central Government. This judgment has come to be the litmus take a look at for assessing the constitutionality of Article 356. Thanks to this single order, the misuse of this text to dismiss inconvenient state governments has drastically lowered.
Sorabjee served as Attorney General between 1998 and 2004. He was Special Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and has served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Hague. He was a life trustee of the India International Centre.
Sorabjee was born in an prosperous enterprise household, however he was by no means drawn to a business profession. His pursuits had been extra in English literature and poetry, and he might reel off the verses of the nice English poets, typically spouting a quote to buttress his argument. He had a hilarious sense of humour and was a terrific mimic.
Another fascinating facet of his multi-faceted persona was his deep curiosity in jazz, a love for which, he recalled, he picked up fairly by chance. He started life as a classical music fanatic, however by mistake the salesperson at Bombay’s iconic Rhythm House dispatched to him a file of Benny Goodman as a substitute of the Brahms Hungarian Rhapsodies that he had ordered. He discovered the unfamiliar notes intriguing, and slowly developed an abiding ardour for jazz. He was president of the Delhi Jazz Association for a few years. And at his birthday dinners, you met a really various set of individuals from many alternative walks of life.
Sorabjee leaves behind his spouse Zena, a devoted Bahai social employee, his daughter Zia Mody, head of the main authorized agency AZB, his son Hormazd, who edits a well-liked auto journal, and one other son Jehangir, who’s a number one physician. Sorabjee was a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan.
As a senior counsel, Sorabjee generously mentored and promoted lots of his juniors who rose in later life to key positions. Harish Salve began out as a junior in his chamber.