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This leaves only a handful of his contemporaries who are still alive and practicing.
Given that this would perhaps be the last generation of legendary lawyers who rose up to this stature, I would like the audience to contribute with any of their anecdotes (good, bad, and ugly) which make these legends unique amongst the countless many.
The thread is not limited to celebrating life of Mr. Fali alone.
Request trolls and timepassers to stay away for the sake of creating one good trail of a conversation. Thanks.
Now go drink what you spat out and slap yourself for being judgy without knowing anything.
His junior, Sharma, in an indianexpress article, says Fali worked from 8 AM to 3 AM for 6 months to prepare for the matter. He refused to take any other matters during the said time (nobody does this in India).
NJAC was held unconstitutional partly because of his herculean efforts and his stature. Otherwise, we would have had the ruling parties appointing political judges. Not that the system is perfect now, but that would have been worse, I believe.
I loved Fali, mostly for his chapter on School of Hard Knocks in his autobiography. Must read.
Also, he lived up to those values except when he did the Bhopal Gas Tragedy matter for Union Carbide (for which he expressed regret).
Interestingly, when he became a member of Rajya Sabha, he quit practicing altogether, which is a huge sacrifice of several crores for a lawyer of his stature.
People are saying he did not train juniors. It is true that he was not like KKV or Ashok Desai, but he did prod Junior Nariman to take up judgeship, which did a lot of good to our system.
He kept writing till the end, spreading awareness about the values of the constitution, for no financial incentive.He clearly did not lack money.
And he was 95 not 91.
Like all of us, he was not perfect. But he was an example to far too many people than you or I will ever be.
Anecdote: I once saw Shyam Divan tell Fali that he wanted to meditate but did not find the time. Fali responded by saying that he lacked inclination and not time. He said there is always time when there is inclination.