At the Bombay high court, some are wondering who the next chief justice will be. Some are wondering whether the authorities will finally bite the bullet and restrict oral arguments to cut down delay. Much debate is going on about who is the best judge in the high court and who is the slowest. As for myself, I am wondering whether the Bombay high court is privileged to have the oldest active lawyer in the world practising amongst them.
Avinash Rana or Kaka as he is popularly known has turned 95 years and is still in active practice. The other day, when I was twiddling my thumbs in the court library, Kaka rushed into the reading room in full regalia. I asked him where he had been and he told me he had been arguing a matter for the Union of India before the division bench. I was deeply impressed. Soon he told me that he was going to run 10 kilometres in a race a few days later. I got worried and went to my friend Uday Bobade to tell him that we should stop Kaka from running 10 km. Uday said chill, he will be fine.
Avinash Jaswantrai Rana was born on July 22, 1927 in Vadodara, Gujarat. He was enrolled as an advocate in September 1953 and designated as a senior advocate in April 1979. He joined Khurshetji Baba in the chambers of Jamshedji Kanga, popularly known in the Bombay high court as Chamber No.1. However, he essentially worked with the late Soli Sorabjee, who became attorney general for India.
He is today over 95 and has completed 69 years of practice as a lawyer. He has appeared in matters along with M.C. Chagla, as also appeared before him and would have appeared before his grandson Riyaz Chagla, had he not thought it inappropriate to do so. He appeared with Nani Palkhivala and M.C. Chagla in the bank nationalisation case and M.C. Chagla in the Kanan Devan Forest case. He appeared for Royappa, a former chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, against the chief minister of Tamil Nādu. In this case, the Supreme Court held that Article 14 cannot be confined to a mere clarification, it has a much wider convocation.
Kaka successfully appeared in the passport case which let to the enactment to the Passport Act, 1958 which regulates the grant and refusal of passport. Another case that he appeared in was Bharat Raja where the Supreme Court laid down that the adjudicating authority is required to pass a speaking order – meaning thereby that reason should be given for his decision. He also appeared with H.M. Seervai in the Judges Transfer case for the petitioners and in preventing detention cases under Cofeposa for the Union government with attorney general Niren De and solicitor general Fali Nariman. He was chief counsel for the commission of enquiry headed by Justice Srikrishna to look into the communal riots of 1992-93. He is counsel for the Union government in the Bombay high court. He appeared for the Ministry of Defence before the commission of enquiry constituted by the state government in respect of the Adarsh building in Colaba. He is a great believer in Satya Sai Baba, just like Palkhivala was.
He is an enthusiast of cricket and had the privilege, as a young lad, of playing with the great Amar Singh, on whose untimely demise the famous commentator Bobby Talyarkhan said that with his death India will be playing with only 10 players. He met Ranjitsinghji and Duleepsinghji. He was chairman of the Bombay Public Service Commission. He played quite a few matches against Vinoo Mankad and played cricket for the senior advocates against the chief justice’s team till the age of 88. Now he walks 7 to 8 km every single day and intends to participate in the January 15 Mumbai Marathon in the 10 kilometres event.
In my view, he is the oldest active advocate in the world. In any event, the most active.
Harsh A. Desai practices law in Mumbai