Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani talked to the Wall Street Journal in typically freewheeling and candid manner about his representation of godman Asaram Bapu, who was accused of sexual assault on a teenager. Excerpts:
RamJet on reports that the alleged victim had a condition that attracted men towards her: “That’s misreporting by the press. I have never said it, I don’t know what this was saying, the reporters there don’t understand English.”
RamJet, aged 90 and famously husband to two wives, on Bapu’s alleged (im)potency: “Frankly I have not heard of a potency test at this time, how do you test a person’s potency? The only way to test his potency is to expose him to some member of the opposite gender. But there’s no reason to think that a man of 74 is totally impotent.”
On his practice, revealing that “of course, naturally” Bapu paid him well: “I am too busy in my work, I’m not merely a lawyer, I’m a member of Parliament, I’m a teacher of law, above all I’m also running my newspaper. I’m the chairman of board of The Sunday Guardian. My practice is of a different kind from other lawyers. I make tons of money at the bar, but I do it from 10% of my clients. Mr. Bapu is in the 10%.”
On unpopular cases: “I have got a rule of professional conduct that no lawyer should choose to defend a client on the ground that other people believe him to be innocent, or that you don’t believe him to be innocent, or that the defense will bring you unpopularity.”
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Word of advice for 74 year old dude.. NO more bunga bunga..ok?
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