Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

She took some fruit with her to the hospital, and he took some files with him to the court. Before departing to visit Bhaskar, she told a servant to prepare and pack some parathas for her husband so that he would have something to eat on the journey to Patna later in the day.

It was a hot morning, and a scorching wind blew along the exposed corridors of the Brahmpur High Court. By nine thirty, Courtroom Number One was packed solid. Inside the courtroom the physical atmosphere, though stuffy, was not unbearable. The long mats of khas recently suspended over a couple of the windows had been freshly sprinkled with water, converting the hot wind of June into a cooler breeze inside.

As for the emotional atmosphere, it was surcharged with suspense, excitement, and anxiety. Of those who had argued the case, only the local lawyers were present, but it seemed that the Brahmpur Bar, whether connected with the case or not, had decided en masse to attend this historic occasion. The press reporters too were present in force, and were already scribbling away. Swivelling and craning their necks in turn, they tried to catch sight of each famous litigant, each Raja or Nawab or great zamindar, whose fate hung in the balance. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the balance had already tilted, but the curtain that hid the scales was still in place. A few minutes more, and it would be drawn aside.

Mahesh Kapoor entered, talking to the Advocate-General of Purva Pradesh. The reporter for the Brahmpur Chronicle could hear only a couple of sentences as they squeezed past him up the side-aisle. ‘A trinity is sufficient to run the universe,’ said the Advocate-General, his perennial smile a little broader than usual, ‘but this case, it appears, needs two extra heads.’

Mahesh Kapoor said: ‘There’s that bastard Marh and his pederastic son — I’m surprised they have the brazenness to come to this court again. At least they look worried.’ Then he shook his head, looking equally worried at the thought of an unfavourable outcome.

The court clock struck ten. The pageant of ushers began. The judges followed in sequence. They looked neither at the government lawyers nor at the advocates for the applicants. It was impossible to make out from their expressions what the judgement might be. The Chief Justice looked to left and right, and the chairs were moved forward. The Court Reader called out the numbers of the several conjoined writ petitions listed ‘for pronouncement of judgment’. The Chief Justice looked down at the thick wad of typed pages in front of him, and riffled through them absently. Every eye in court rested on him. He removed the lace doily from the glass in front of him, and took a sip of water.

He turned to the last page of the seventy-five-page judgement, leaned his head to one side, and began reading the operative part of the judgement. He read for less than half a minute, clearly and quickly:

‘The Purva Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act does not contravene any provision of the Constitution and is not invalid. The main application, together with the connected applications, are dismissed. It is our view that parties should bear their own costs, and we order accordingly.’

He signed the judgement and handed it to the judge on his right, the senior puisne judge, who signed and handed it across the Chief Justice to the next-most-senior judge; thus the document ricocheted from side to side until it was handed down to the Court Reader, who stamped it with the seal of the court bearing the legend: ‘High Court of Judicature, Brahmpur’. Then the judges rose, for that was the only item of business for which the full bench of five had been constituted. The chair shuffle was reversed, and the judges disappeared behind the dull scarlet curtain to the right, followed by the glittering ushers.

As was the custom of the Brahmpur High Court, all four puisne judges accompanied the Chief Justice to his chambers; then they walked to the chambers of the next-most-senior judge and so on in order. Finally, Mr Justice Maheshwari walked back to his chambers alone. Having thrashed the issues out for weeks in person and on paper no one had been in the mood for further conversation; the black-gowned procession had been almost funereal. As for Mr Justice Maheshwari, he was still puzzled about the document to which he had just affixed his signature, but he was a little closer to understanding Sita’s position in the Ramayana.

To say that there was pandemonium in court would be an understatement. As soon as the last judge disappeared from view litigants and lawyers, press and public alike, began cheering and screaming, embracing each other or weeping. Firoz and his father hardly had the chance to look at each other when each was surrounded by a mixed group of lawyers and landlords and journalists — and all coherent speech became impossible. Firoz looked grim.

The Raja of Marh, like everyone else, had risen when the judges rose. But aren’t they going to read the judgement? he thought. Have they postponed it? He could not grasp that so much significance could be contained in so few words. But the joy on the government side and the despair and consternation on his own brought home to him the full import of the baleful mantra. His legs gave way; he pitched forward on to the row of chairs in front of him and collapsed on the ground; and darkness came over his eyes.

Two days later, the Advocate-General of Purva Pradesh, Mr Shastri, carefully perused the full text of the judgement which had been brought out by the High Court printing press. He was pleased that it was unanimous. It was tightly written and clear, and would, he believed, withstand the inevitable appeal to the Supreme Court, especially now that the additional, recently erected wall of the First Amendment stood around it.

The contentions based on delegation of legislation, lack of public purpose and so on, had been dealt with and dismissed.

On the basic question — the one that could easily have gone either way in Mr Shastri’s view — the judges had decided thus:

The ‘rehabilitation grant’ and ‘compensation’ both together formed the true recompense, the ‘actual compensation’ for the land taken over. This, according to the judges, put both items beyond constitutional challenge on the grounds either of inadequacy or of discrimination. Had the government’s carefully planned contention that the two items were different been upheld, the rehabilitation grant would not have enjoyed the protection afforded under the Constitution to ‘compensation’, and would therefore have been struck down under its provision for the ‘equal protection of the laws’.

As the Advocate-General saw it, the judges had given a violent blow to the government — and thereby moved it out of the path of an unseen but swiftly approaching train. He smiled to himself at the strangeness of it all.

As for the special cases — the Hindu charitable trusts, the waqfs, the crown grantees, the erstwhile rulers and so on — none of their contentions had been upheld. Shastri had only one mild regret, and that had nothing to do with the judgement itself. It was that his rival, G.N. Bannerji, had not been in court to hear the judgement.

But G.N. Bannerji was away in Calcutta, arguing another vastly lucrative if less momentous case, and Mr Shastri reflected that he had probably merely shrugged and poured himself another Scotch when he had heard by telephone or telegram about the result of this one.

In previous Pul Melas, although the crowds began to thin out after Jeth Purnima, large numbers of pilgrims still remained eleven days later to bathe on the night of Ekadashi, or even fourteen days later at the next ‘dark’ moon or amavas, which was sacred to Lord Jagannath. Not so this time. The tragedy, apart from the dread it had aroused among the pious, had resulted in a compete dislocation of regular administration on the sands. The health staff, overburdened by the emergency, was forced to neglect its regular tasks. Hygiene suffered, and there were epidemics of gastro-enteritis and diarrhoea, especially on the northern bank. The food-stalls were dismantled in an attempt to discourage the pilgrims from remaining, but those who remained had to eat, and soon profiteering became rife: a seer of puris cost five rupees, a seer of boiled potatoes cost three rupees, and the price of paan trebled.