Ram Bhoolchand Jethmalani (English: Ram Bhoolchand Jethmalani, born- 14 September 1923; died- 8 September 2019) was a famous Indian lawyer and politician. He was also the former Law Minister of India and the President of the Bar Council of India. During his advocacy career, Ram Jethmalani had to face severe criticism many times for pleading high profile and controversial cases. It is said that he was one of the most expensive lawyers of the Supreme Court, but he also used to advocate for free in many cases.
Ram Jethmalani was born on 14 September 1923 in Shikarpur, Sindh (now in Pakistan). His father’s name was Bhoolchand Gurmukhdas Jethmalani and mother’s name was Parbati Bhoolchand. He received his primary education in the local school. He was intelligent in studies, so he was promoted twice in school to a higher class than his regular class, as a result of which he passed the matriculation examination at the age of just 13. At the age of 17, he obtained an LLB degree from S.C. Sahni Law College, Karachi. At that time, the age required to practice was 21 years, but a special resolution was passed for Ram Jethmalani and he was allowed to practice at the age of 18. After this, he also obtained an LLM degree from S.C. Sahni Law College.
Ram Jethmalani was also a member of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. He was also the Law Minister and Urban Development Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government.
Ram Jethmalani was married to Durga at the age of 18. Shortly before the partition of the country in 1947, he also married Ratna Sahni (who was a lawyer by profession). He had 4 children from these two wives – Rani, Shobha, Mahesh and Janak.
Ram Jethmalani started his career as a professor in Sindh. After this, he established a law firm in Karachi along with his friend A.K. Brohi (later became the Law Minister of Pakistan). When riots broke out in Karachi after the partition in 1948, Brohi advised him to leave Pakistan and go to India. In 1953, he started teaching at the Government Law College in Mumbai. Here he taught undergraduate and postgraduate level students. He also taught Comparative Law and International Law at Wayne State University in Detroit, USA.
In 1959, Ram Jethmalani came into the limelight during the famous case of the State of Maharashtra against K.M. Nanavati. He was accompanied by Justice Yashwant Vishnu Chandrachud (later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India) in this case. In the 1960s, he was seen defending many ‘smugglers’ in the court, after which he came to be known as the ‘smugglers’ lawyer’; but he did not care about the criticism and said that he was only performing the duty of a ‘lawyer’. He had been the President of the ‘Bar Council of India’ four times. In 1996, he was also a member of the ‘International Bar Council’. Since 2003, he was Professor Emeritus at Symbiosis Law School, Pune.
In 1971, Ram Jethmalani contested the Lok Sabha elections for the first time from Ulhasnagar constituency but was unsuccessful. During the Emergency in the country, he was the President of the Bar Council of India and strongly criticized the then Prime Minister. The result was that an arrest warrant was issued against him, after which he left the country and went to Canada. He returned to India after the Emergency ended.
After the Emergency, in the 1977 elections, he entered the Lok Sabha for the first time by defeating the then Law Minister H.R. Gokhale from the Bombay Lok Sabha constituency, but he could not become the Law Minister because Morarji Desai did not like his lifestyle.
Ram Jethmalani died on 8 September 2019, at his home in New Delhi.