Ram Jethmalani

Ram Boolchand Jethmalani (14 September 1923 – 8 September 2019) was an Indian lawyer and politician. He served as India's Union Minister of Law and Justice, as chairman of the Indian Bar Council, and as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

Jethmalani obtained his LL.B. degree at the age of 17 and started practising law in his hometown, Shikarpur, until the partition of India. The partition led him to move to Mumbai as a refugee where he began his life and career afresh. He announced his retirement from judicial profession in 2017.

Throughout his political career, Jethmalani worked for improving the relations between India and Pakistan, owing to his experiences as a refugee post-partition. He was elected as member of the Lok Sabha twice, contensting from Janata Party, from the Mumbai North West constituency. He also served as the Union Minister of Urban Development in the first Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry, against whom he later contested election in the 2004 Indian general elections from the Lucknow constituency. He later returned to BJP in 2010, and was elected to the Rajya Sabha on its ticket.

Jethmalani was awarded the Human Rights Award by World Peace Through Law in 1977. He authored books such as Big Egos, Small Men; Conscience of a Maverick; and Maverick: Unchanged, Unrepentant; among others. He also co-authored legal scholarly books on different fields of law.

Jethmalani was born on 14 September 1923 in Shikarpur, Sindh in the Sindh division of the then Bombay Presidency (today a part of Pakistan) to Boolchand Gurmukhdas Jethmalani and Parbati Boolchand. He got a double promotion in school and completed matriculation at the age of 13. At the age of 17 he secured an LL.B. degree from the Bombay University with a first class distinction. At that time, the minimum age for becoming a lawyer was 21, but a special exception (resulting from an application that he made to the court contesting the rule regarding minimum age) allowed him to become a lawyer at the age of 18. He received his LL.M. from Bombay University, since Sindh did not have a university of its own at that time.

Jethmalani married his first wife, Durga, in a traditional Indian arranged marriage, around the age of 18. In 1947, just before the partition of India, he married his second wife, Ratna Shahani, a lawyer by profession. His family includes both of his wives and four children – three by Durga (Rani, Shobha, Mahesh) and one by Ratna (Janak). Among his two sons and two daughters, Mahesh and Rani have been supreme court lawyers while Mahesh is also a BJP leader, and Rani a social activist. Kamna Jethmalani, an actress in Telugu and Tamil films is a relative of him. She is the granddaughter of one of his brothers.

Jethmalani died on 8 September 2019 in New Delhi at his home at the age of 95. According to his son Mahesh Jethmalani, he had been unwell for the last few months of his life, and died at 7:45 am (IST), six days short of his 96th birthday.

Ram Jethmalani started his career as a lawyer and Professor in Sindh before partition. He started his own law firm in Karachi with his friend A.K. Brohi who was senior to him by seven years. In February 1948, when riots broke out in Karachi, he fled to India on the advice of his friend Brohi and when he came to India in that day he had only INR 10 in his pocket and with that note he stayed in the refugee camp for few days.