The phrase that best described Fali Nariman was conscience keeper, and that is how I will always remember him.
Fali Sam Nariman, who was happy to be addressed as ‘Fali’ by young and old alike, was conscience-keeper to the Supreme Court of India, to the bar and the bench alike, to the various state governments he had represented over the decades, and even to the nation.
He was just 46 when, having represented the Union government as Additional Solicitor General of India from 1972 to 1975, he was faced with the imposition of the Emergency on June 25, 1975.
Fali refused to stand by and defend this suspension of constitutional rights. He promptly resigned. At a time when the Supreme Court’s judges had folded up like a defeated pack of cards, this doughty young lawyer stood up and was counted.
At another time, much later, Fali returned the brief of the Gujarat government in the prestigious Narmada Dam rehabilitation case, when he learnt that the same government was looking the other way as Christian tribals were being attacked in the Dang district, their churches burnt, and their bibles desecrated. Fali first tried to prevail upon the minister who briefed him to ensure government intervention and protection of the hapless minority. But when he found that Christian tribals were being attacked and killed despite assurances by the minister, he refused to appear for the government.
He was equally questioning of himself and the role he unwittingly played in certain cases.
Also read: At a Time When the Battles of India’s Future Will Be Fought in its Courts, We Will Miss Fali Nariman
Having successfully defended the Union Carbide Corporation and its American directors in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas disaster, and having brought a modicum of closure to the legal battles through the $470 million settlement that he helped negotiate before getting the imprimatur of the Supreme Court, Fali was later anguished by the enormous human tragedy that Carbide had inflicted.
When I arrived in the Supreme Court in 2010, he asked me to represent his close friend, the former managing director of UCC India, in a curative petition initiated by the then Attorney General for India. And when I asked him whether he would lead me in the matter, his answer was a deeply disturbed, “I can’t, I can’t, I’m tortured by it”.
A couple of years later Fali devoted a lengthy chapter to this anguish in his memoir, Before Memory Fades.
Less disturbed but nonetheless keenly aware that perhaps he had been instrumental in bringing about a less-than-perfect system for the selection of judges, Fali always wondered how things might have turned out if he had not been as successful in arguing the first and second Judges cases, S.P. Gupta and Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association. Those cases led to the ‘collegium’ system of judicial appointments, giving India the unique distinction of being the only major nation where judges select future judges.
In later years, Fali continued as conscience keeper through his calmly reasoned, gentle, yet persuasive reminders of the strengths and weaknesses of our judicial system. Putting pen to paper time and again during the past 10 years, he wrote The State of the Nation (2013), India’s Legal System – Can it be Saved? (2017), God Save the Hon’ble Supreme Court (2018), Harmony Amidst Disharmony (2022), and even the very recent guide for citizens, You Must Know Your Constitution (2023).
And of course, on another and more personal note, he most recently co-authored The Delightful Mr. Daphtary on India’s first Solicitor General, C.K. Daphtary.
Much will be written on this great jurist’s contributions to the bar, the bench, and the nation. But to me, Fali will always remain the conscience keeper.
Rest in peace, Fali.
Chander Uday Singh is a Senior Advocate.
