Prof Durgadas Banerjea- The Grand Old Man of NUJS

“No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value.”- Burtrand Russel.A student entering NUJS was always told that Prof. D. Banerjea’s classes were one of the great positives that he/ she must look forward to during his days at the law school. This coupled with his omnipresence in college activities and sagacious appearance marked with a perfect dressing manners, left in most students a huge sense of expectation regarding his classes as they passed on to their second year (which was when his courses started)..And as is evident from the volume of grief that has been pouring in from all sections of the “NUJS family” in the wake of his sad demise last Sunday, Prof. Banerjea not only surpassed all such expectations regarding his teaching skills but also endeared himself to the students at a far more personal level through his warmth and affection. Prof. Banerjea’s motive in teaching was not to inform students of the labyrinth of rules and case law governing Indian criminal law or to test their academic aptitude. He rarely cited case law or read out lengthy statutory provisions. Instead, he discussed only underlying principles almost entirely with the help of simple and often witty real-life examples presented straight from his memory..His style of teaching was aimed as much at the low-ranking/ less interested section of the students as the others. In fact he made it a point to identify students having difficulties in following the subject and carried them along with the rest of the class. This was probably why the large amount of respect he commanded was surpassed only by the affection he enjoyed from students..Even outside the class room, Prof. Banerjea made it clear that his priority was students and their wellbeing. As is testified by Mr. Kutty, his personal secretary, a student wanting to meet him was never made to wait outside his room even for a minute no matter what important work he was engrossed in. Students went to him in droves for various things from clearing academic doubts to seeking petty favours like dead-line extensions. Rarely, if at all, did he say no to any request from a student..The Diwali of 2005 was probably the first time police entered NUJS campus in the wake of a crime- bursting of crackers that made noise beyond permitted decibel levels. The seriousness of the crime being compounded by the fact that the Diwali was being celebrated right next to the WB Pollution Control Board’s headquarters! There was a serious possibility of many of us being arrested, if not for the spirited defence Prof. Banerjea is said to have put up (over the phone) with senior officials on behalf of his “ignorant” students. I would imagine that most other 75-year old professors would have reacted far more casually to a distress call from errant students on a Diwali night..I don’t think it would have been possible for anybody but a man of such talent and experience to attract attention for such ‘unglamorous’ subjects as criminal procedure from students bent on pursuing corporate jobs. His focus was always on concepts underlying the various provisions of the law and he would explain each concept with rudimentary examples which were often witty in content and also because of the child-like mannerisms with which he used to present them. For instance, one day when he wanted to explain the concept of “proportionate use of force” by police in trying to apprehend an accused he gave the example of a thief who climbed a tree to escape from the chasing constable. The constable first cajoles him saying “neeche ajao please” and when the thief didn’t pay heed the constable immediately took his gun and shot the thief down. After narrating this, he proceeded to elicit responses from students on what other methods the constable could have used to apprehend the thief. Soon the entire class understood what “proportionate use of force” meant without much theoretical explanation..His question papers were never demanding and more importantly he never believed in punishing students for anything. He had a very unique, amicable way of pointing out people’s faults. For instance, once while teaching my class he noticed a student who appeared like he was sleeping. He called out to the student and asked him if he was sleeping and the student responded with a yes. Prof. Banerjea immediately called the student a “good boy” and then turned to a few other students successively repeating the question “why good?” to each student. When nobody came up with a clear reply he said he was good because he was honest! He would then go onto explain the importance of being “mentally alert” and sitting with an erect spine in a class room, all with a heart full of simplicity and affection..Prof. Banerjea joined NUJS at its inception after a long and illustrious career in judicial service and academics. He was the District & Session Judge of undivided Midnapore and Chief Judicial Magistrate of the undivided 24 Parganas. In class he used to recount an incident during his tenure as the CJM with a lot of gusto and pride. One Bijan Kumar Basu was an Executive Engineer with the Calcutta Improvement Trust. He was murdered and thrown of a moving local train in Kolkata while resisting an armed robbery (a bridge around the vicinity was named after him subsequently- the Bijan Setu). Prof. Banerjea judged the trial against the accused in the crime. He acquitted them in spite of a parallel trial by media and mounting public pressure to convict the accused because he found the only strong evidence against the accused- an eye witness- to be unreliable. He firmly believed that this was the right thing to do and concluded the narration with a deep sense of vindication by pointing out that the High Court upheld the acquittal. It is said that Prof. Banerjea was specifically chosen to be the CJM of the undivided 24 Parganas, the largest and an extremely unwieldy district in India then, because of his uprightness and honesty. Prof. Banerjea also inducted many retired judicial officers, including his close associate Mr. N. Konar into NUJS as faculty and all of them were known for similar traits. Prof. Banerjea was subsequently appointed as a Registrar-General of the Calcutta High Court, clearly in recognition of his services as a Judicial Officer. This was also a great administrative responsibility, the experience from which must have come in handy much later when he had to officiate as the acting Vice-Chancellor of NUJS..Prof. Banerjea taught law to trainee IPS officers at the SVP National Police Academy, Hyderabad and also taught as Professor and coordinator of the faculty of law at the LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie for over fifteen years. During the course of these assignments he taught people who in future became the crème de la crème of India’s police and civil service. The impact that he must have made on his students and the respect he commanded was evident from the influence he wielded with the uppermost echelons of these services..He could get senior IPS officers to teach and speak at NUJS. The fact that Prof. Banerjea’s trademark style of teaching had the same impact even on these trainee officers as the young NUJS students became evident from the fondness with which some of these officers recollected memories of him and his classes. In 2004, NUJS organized a mammoth vertical-interaction seminar for senior IPS officers from all over the country. As a student volunteer (which I actively was in almost all programs organised by Prof. Banejea), I received some of these officers from the Railway Station. All of them remembered Prof. Banerjea’s classes very fondly and one of them even mentioned that Prof. Banerjea was called “Dada Banerjea” by everyone in these institutes..Mr. M.V. Shiju (an extremely popular and younger faculty member of NUJS of the time) tells me that after retiring from NUJS and moving to Delhi to stay with his family, upon his and Mr. Ram Mahoan’s (another faculty member who left NUJS pretty early) request, Prof. Banerjea taught a course on Administrative Law in TERI’s MA in Public Policy and Sustainable Development programme. Incidentally many of the participants of this programme being mid-career/senior civil servants were his former students at Mussorie. In Mr. Shiju’s words –“the senior officers, once again became the ‘naughty probationers’ before him and one senior officer even told me, “I would do anything for Prof. D. Banerjea.””.Prof. Banerjea shared a very close professional relationship with Prof. Menon. There is no doubt that the rapid growth of NUJS as in institution within a few years of its inception was a direct result of collaboration between these two great individuals..Prof. Banerjea was also relied upon by all the three successive Vice-Chancellors of the time to share administrative responsibilities. He officiated as NUJS’s acting Vice-Chancellor in the interval between Prof. B.S. Chimini’s departure and Prof. M.P. Singh’s arrival. His administrative capabilities were at best display, however, in his capacity as the head of the School of Criminal Justice and Administration. In that capacity he organised innumerable seminars, workshops and courses for students, officers, judges, prosecutors etc; all of which involved the presence of senior signatories and VIPs. The administrative requirements for these activities were huge and he never found a dearth of student volunteers to assist him. Prof. Banaerjea was a stickler for punctuality. Not only did he end his classes as soon as the bell rang even if he was in the middle of a discussion, he would also politely interrupt any speaker exceeding his time limit at these seminars by pointing out that this would eat into lunch time and that “there is a thin line between hunger and anger!”.Prof. Banerjea loved his students and the fact that his students reciprocated this feeling meant a lot to him. Mr. Shiju recounts now (as he used to even then) Prof. Banerjea’s delight every semester at ‘topping’ the scores in the student feedback for faculty performance- “end semester student feedback was really a humbling experience for many of the young faculty at NUJS. With the enthusiasm of a ‘fresher’,Prof. D. Banerjea used to wait for it. He never used to conceal his excitement when semester after semester, year after year he emerged as the “topper”.”.Prof. Banerjea enjoyed everybody’s love and respect. He treated his staff extremely well and commanded a lot of loyalty from them. In fact, his personal secretary for his entire tenure of 8 years at NUJS, Mr. Kutty (a veteran in assisting many stalwarts like Barun De & Partha Chatterjee), left the University on Prof. Banerjea’s retirement. I must also mention that for obvious reasons, including the fact that they were joint-contributories in raising the fledgling law school to its feet, the students of the first batch of NUJS shared a special bonding with Prof. Banerjea..No words of tribute can do justice to Prof. Banerjea’s persona, his benevolence, knowledge, skill and his vast experience. He was a man who practiced what he preached. He maintained the same discipline that he expected of others. He was ever “physically fit, mentally alert and spiritually high”- a state that he wished all his students to be in, in class and outside..(I wish to thank Mr. N. Konar, Mr. M.V. Shiju, Mr. Kutty, Mr. Abhiroop Mukherjee and Mr. Shameek Sen, all of whom were very closely associated with Prof. Banerjea at NUJS, for giving inputs and helping me recollect memories for this tribute)..Adithya Reddy graduated from NUJS in 2008

Prof Durgadas Banerjea- The Grand Old Man of NUJS

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