I am thankful to my Friend Suresh Shelat, Chairman of the Justice P. D. Desai Memorial Lecture Committee and the Praleen Public Charitable Trust for giving me an opportunity to pay my respectful homage to late Justice P. D. Desai’s memory. Once Lord Denning was asked what is the greatest quality of a lawyer ? And he said, “courage”. He didn’t say learning, he didn’t say commitment but courage. That’s true of our great judge, because without courage you cannot take any society forward. You cannot take the law forward. You, have to be courageous to turn the tide, you have to be courageous to meet with opposition. You have to be courageous to travel a new path, not tread upon the old oft trodden path. So I too believe that courage is perhaps the most distinguishing quality which distinguishes people who are part of the system and those who want to change the system and I am delighted to pay homage to late Justice Desai because he was a man of courage, he was also a man of great conviction. He was a man of great integrity. How many judges decline going to the Supreme Court ? Very few do. And he was a man who understood, and had great knowledge of law, great erudition as well. His landmark definition of the concept of plant with reference to depreciation in Income Tax Law is a milestone. Nani Palkhiwala called it a milestone judgement in the history of Taxation Law. But he had another quality without which you cannot endear yourself to people and it is empathy. He had great empathy for human beings. When he was the Chairman of the Redressal Committee for the Sardar Sarovar Project, I remember, and this happened in 1999. He had lost his late wife, he was no longer the Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court which is the last position that he held because he had been the Acting Chief Justice here, the Chief Justice of Himachal, the Chief Justice of Calcutta and then the Chief Justice of Bombay. He immersed himself in that task and gave succour to millions of people. And ultimately, you know, the project went on further because of his enormous commitment to give redressal of the grievances for the poor. So he was a man who had courage, he was a man who had empathy and he had been a man of great erudition. So, as I said, It is really an honour for me to have been invited to deliver this particular lecture. Continue reading →