Big Egos, Small Men

Contents: 1. Our chief justice. 2. Vanquished will argue still. 3. The meddlesome visitor. 4. My resignation and attorney general Soli Sorabjee. 5. Sorabjee and telecom. 6. The M.S. Shoes case. 7. M.S. Shoes and Sorabjee. 8. Explanation in the Rajya Sabha. 9. Attorney general’s professional ethics and the Hinduja opinion. 10. The finale. Annexures. Index.

"This book is about an incident in Court No. 1 of Supreme Court of India on 21 July 2000, the like of which has not smudged ever the copy-book of any Court in the Commonwealth or the United States.

The attending lawyers and journalists were shocked to hear the Chief Justice deliver himself of two one-liners packed with malicious venom. Is there a civilized Government? Do they know something called joint Cabinet responsibility? If these had become the judgement of the Court, the Government may well have resigned.

But the Chief Justice was really venting his spleen on the Law Minister who was reported by newspapers to have warned the Maharashtra Government against arresting Bala Saheb Thakre for a time barred offence of seven years ago.

The Prime Minister, wearing a troublesome crown of thorns, was told that the heavens have fallen. The executive and judiciary are on a collision course, Government will come to grief and it, law officers will face the music. Disaster can only be averted by neutralizing the Law Minister.

The book unfolds the untold story of three persons who bamboozled an unsuspecting Prime Minister, on to a impolitic course." (jacket)