By Kroswami

As a junior lawyer, you should consider yourself to be extremely lucky if you get the chance to argue a matter which is at the stage of final arguments. Junior lawyers are normally used to obtain Passovers or to “mention” a matter or seek adjournments or perhaps appear in the Registrar’s Court. As your experience grows and depending on your luck, you may be sent for arguments on minor applications or make some minor submissions. These may sound petty but often, even seeking an adjournment requires great skill and presence of mind. And once the judge finds out that you are a junior lawyer seeking an adjournment, you can almost always expect the judge to quiz you on some aspect of the matter or the other, just to check whether you have read your file or to have a little fun even.

Hence, as a junior lawyer, your goals are a bit different. Your victories and defeats are smaller but still as sweet or bitter. For example, you may persuade a normally strict judge to adjourn a matter, or you may get a Passover even when there is a senior counsel on the other side.

And it is in these small victories that a junior lawyer finds solace and inspiration. It is with these tiny “wins” that a junior lawyer builds his/her confidence and it is in these seemingly inconsequential procedures that a junior lawyer hones his/her craft. That is the way it has been and that is the way it shall continue for some time to come.

I remember my first such “victory” came before the Registrar’s Court. The Registrar’s Court is where matters are sent for recording evidence, completion of proceedings etc. For example, it is in the Registrar’s Court that witnesses are examined, their depositions are recorded etc. The Registrar’s Court will certify that all the pleadings are complete (the reply, rejoinder etc. have been filed) and then the matter shall be referred back to the High Court for deliberation.

Anyway, my matter was relating to a family dispute between an old man and his son. I was fairly new to the profession and hence still struck by how fragile human relationships were and how cruel family members could be to each other. The old man (our client) had been thrown out of the family house and we had filed a suit for possession and other reliefs. The opposite party had been purposely delaying filing their reply since the old man had been thrown out and they were enjoying possession of the property.

On that day, the only point to be raised was why the opposite party had still not filed its reply.

So I began my arguments and I ranted and raved about the unfairness of it all. I pleaded that this is no way an eighty-year old man should be treated, that this is no way for a son to abuse his father and so on and so forth. For ten of the sweetest minutes in my life, I was articulate, I was persuasive and I was brilliant (yes yes, alright so modesty is not my most apparent virtue). The fact that the opposite counsel had sent his clueless junior to argue the matter thinking that nothing would happen before the Registrar’s Court also helped.

In the end, the judge awarded costs of ten thousand rupees! In effect, the judge was ordering the opposite party to pay my client ten thousand rupees! It was by far one of greatest “little” victories of my life and I left that courtroom walking on cloud number eleven billion.

Of course, the honeymoon did not last too long, as is so often the case in litigation. A few weeks later, I appeared before a judge for framing of issues and forgot to mention an extremely important point. The Boss was furious and made me draft an application for amending the list of issues framed. Further, to drive home the point, the Boss told me to go and argue the application itself!

Which I did…..well sort of. Before I could begin, the judge calmly looked at me and said “You may argue the application. But first pay costs of fifty thousand rupees.”

I don’t quite remember what my thoughts were in those terrifying moments which followed. What I do remember is the complete silence in the court room and the bile slowly making its way up my throat as I contemplated Boss’s reaction to the imposition of fifty thousand rupees as costs. I would be grounded into tiny bits of nothingness, I really would.

I stammered and stuttered my way through the next five minutes and somehow the costs were waived off but the application was dismissed. My ears were burning as I left the court room and even now I can remember the waves of relief mixed with shame.

Much later, I would look back at both the experiences and realize that in litigation, you celebrate the small victories and you grin through the small defeats. And you soldier on.

And that is the way it has been and that is the way it will be for some time to come.

Kroswami, after five glorious years in Calcutta, was a litigating lawyer in Delhi. Two years later, Kroswami decided to leave Delhi and shift to Bombay where he continues to meet people dressed in white shirts and black pants.

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