The last of the giants of Allahabad High Court has passed away. During the last quarter of a century Punditji strode the Indian legal scene like a colossal. He was a great lawyer, a matchless advocate, but above all he was a loveable personality who was kind to a fault. I first heard of him before he had become one of the leaders of the Allahabad Bar. I was studying in the Allahabad University then. One Shri Sharma, who use to publish a single sheet irregular journal mainly devoted to the High Court News, came to meet my father. He showed me some of the issues of this journal, many of which contained predictions about possible appointments to the High Court Bench. I was familiar with some of the names mentioned therein, but not with the name of Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra. I asked Shri Sharma as to who this gentleman was, whose High Court Judgeship he was predicting. Shri Sharma spoke to me about the brilliance of Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra in very high terms. This was sometime in 1945, almost two years before Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra was appointed a Deputy Government Advocate in the High Court. I use to visit the High Court fairly frequently even during those days when I was studying for my B.Sc and I made it a point to find out and watch Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra in court during my next visit to the High Court. I found him in the court of Chief Justice, Sir Iqbal Ahmad, arguing a couple of second appeals for admission. He was dressed in a rather shabby black Khadi coat and a white Khadi pant. He also did not strike me then as a handsome man, but I was struck by the great confidence, with which he was making his points before that extremely sharp and quick judge, Sir Iqbal Ahmad. Even so, little could I then conceive of the sheer brilliance of his intellect and the poetic music of his language and the diction as also of the other great qualities of his head and heart with which I was to become so familiar in due course. DEPUTY GOVERNMENT ADVOCATE It was in 1947 that Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra was appointed Deputy Government Advocate, when a vacancy was created on my father’s resignation from the office of State Council and it was his performance in this post which became the foundation of his future glories. His masterly conduct, during that period of difficult Government appeals against acquittals immediately marked him out for very high positions in times to come. In was in 1951 that Shri Govind Ballav Pant, a shrewd judge of men and their capabilities, subjected Punditji to, what I regarded, a test in the constitutional field by asking him to appear for the Government, in the Zamindari Abolition case, although this fell outside his domain as Government Advocate who was only responsible for criminal cases. Punditji’s grasp of the principles of constitutional law and the brilliance of his advocacy in a case in which the cream of the Indian Bar was on display with men like P.R. Das and Moti Lal Setalvad made Punditji’s elevation in the highest office of Advocate General of the largest Indian State a mere matter of time. Soon there after in 1952, when the office of the Advocate General fell vacant on the account of the demise of the great advocate Pyare Lal Banerjee, Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra was asked to adorn the great office. By this time, I had already come in fairly intimate professional contact with him, having appeared against him in 1959 for seven days in a full bench case involving a question relating to the delegation of essential legislative powers. The years after 1952 were years during which Punditji rose from eminence to eminence in the all India field and came to be regarded by many as the best available all-round advocate in the whole of India. What distinguished him from many others was his completeness as a lawyer and an advocate. There was no field in law in which he was not equally at ease and he was as brilliant on the original side as on the appellate side. He was a very formidable cross-examiner and had no peers in the building up of a case at the stage of original trial. Being of a retiring nature, my contacts with Punditji remained confined to cases and to court till the year 1962. My intimate contact with him on a personal level really began in 1962 and was at its peak from 1962 to 1967 during the period that I held offices of Senior Standing Council and Additional Advocate General. During this period, I was privileged to receive from him the same affection and regard as any member of his immediate family. It was during this time that I realized what a great soul Punditji was. I then was that, his brilliance as a lawyer and as an advocate, which was by now so universally acknowledged all over India, virtually failed into insignificance before his other human qualities. His compassion and concern for his fellow being, the complete absence of any malice towards anyone and his great interest in all aspects of human life created a deep impression on my mind. The simplicity of his personal life and his vast knowledge about almost everything also evoked any spontaneous feelings of great admiration and respect for him. SUFFERING WITHOUT MURMUR Punditji had a great capacity of undergoing physical suffering without showing it, and I had many occasions to witness this. During the last months of his life however I simply marveled at the manner in which he silently suffered when it was visible that the suffering was as great as to be beyond anybody else’s endurance. Even in these conditions he always had a word of cheer for the others. I saw him in June, July in August and finally on the 11th of October, just about 41 hours before his end. Even on this last occasion, he had a completely alert mind while his body was completely emaciated and there was so much swelling on his limbs and face that it looked almost frightening. He talked, to me with his head resting on the stool in front of him, on his bed. It was just once during the conversation that he fully raised his head and looked at me squarely in the face. That look of his shall haunt me for quite sometime to come. He talked to me about the Prime Minister’s election case and about the state of his physical health. He told me that there was nothing wrong with him because each one of his organs was functioning very well and yet added that nothing was right also as he was not in a position to move about. I waited for as few minutes and then quietly took leave of him with folded hands. This was the last that I saw of Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra while living. Punditji lived a full life replete with achievements and honours. He was such a versatile and noble man that the like of him may not be born again.

Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra and wife – Photos

Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra

Smt. Gayatri Devi

Wife of Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra

Poem written on her by Pt. K.L. Misra

Died on 29th April 1969.

Sites of K.L. Misra

http://www.flickr.com/photos/klmisra/

http://klmisra.spaces.live.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/klmisra

Sites of Munnan

http://munnanmisra.spaces.live.com/

http://onefamily.ibibo.com/DashBoard/Index/784933352

http://www.ibibo.com/mishran

Required
paper coverage/clipping/articles on Pt. K.L. Misra. Anyone having any material on him -
photographs/articles etc. do send them over at klmisra@yahoo.co.in. Thanks.

CONTEMPT OF COURT: THE NEED FOR A FRESH LOOK

Justice Markandey Katju, Judge,
Supreme Court of India

In this connection I may refer to the speech delivered on 19.2.1968 by Mr.K.L. Misra, the then Advocate General of U.P. on the demise of my grandfather, Late Dr.K.N. Katju in which he said:

“No leadership of the Bar, at least in those days, was possible without the background of a deep scholarship and learning of law. I remember, very vividly, his coming back to the Bar, after incarceration of about 3 or 4 years, late in 1943, when he sat down, in a corner of the Advocates Association, and then, within a few days, read through cases decided by the British Courts during the time of his absence from the Bar. I went near him. He called me and put before me a judgment of the King’s Bench Division, which I read with absorbing interest, the very learned discussion in the judgment on the difference between “value” and “price”.
Dr.Katju asked me: “what is the significant thing you have noticed about this judgment”. I read it again before him and tried to tell him what the gist of the judgment was. He said: “No, no; look at the date of the judgment.” He then pointed out to me that the date, on which the judgment was delivered, with that scholarly and cloistered detachment, fell during the days when the German Air Force – its bomber squadron – were spreading widespread devastation and destruction in England. He told me that this detachment makes up the mentality of a true Judge.”

Source http://districtcourtallahabad.up.nic.in/articles/contempt.pdf.

K.L. Misra and Cricket

In the article `Memories, Memories and Memories’ by Hon’ble Mr Justice Amitav Banerjee, former Chief Justice, High Court, Allahabad:

“During our younger days, the junior members of the Bar got together and formed a Cricket Club. They had an annual match on the Republic day between the members of the High Court Bench and Bar against the members of the Bench and Bar of the District Court at Allahabad. It used to be great fun. The Matches were keenly contested and we had a galaxy of
old and renowned cricketers acting as Umpires. Chief Justice Mootham
was an automatic choice as Umpire. One day he was the Umpire at the
Bowler’s end and I had just bowled to the batsman, Shri S.N. Varma,
who made it into a half volley and drove it hard to the mid-off where
Justice James was fielding. In his younger days he was a reputed
hockey goalkeeper (his brother was member of the 1932 Indian Olympic
Hockey Team). Justice James, who perhaps forgot that he was not a goalkeeper and tried to block the ball with his legs instead of taking a hard catch with his hands. The ball hit his knee-cap on the right leg and there was loud noise. We were deeply concerned and thought that a bone must have cracked or broken.
While Justice James was receiving some immediate first aid, Justice
Mootham walked up to him and when he realised that it was not a
serious matter, he turned round to Shri Varma and asked him `has been
dismissing too many of your appeals?’

This may not give an impression that the cricket team only consisted of junior elements. We had Shri A.P. Dubey, aged nearly 70, who played for Oxford University when he was student there. He came to the cricket field attired in his Oxonian cap. He was a tall man. He stood erect and opened our innings. The opponents usually had a L.B.W. decision against him but he was clear in his mind that he would do better in the next year. In course of time, we had a formidable pair of openers for the High Court Bench and the Bar. They were Justice Hamidullah Beg, later a Judge of the High Court, the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court and the Judge of the Supreme Court and later Chief Justice of India. His partner was Shri Shanti Bhushan, who rose to be the Law Minister in the Union Cabinet, and is now a renowned senior Advocate of the Supreme Court. Our Advocate-General, Pt. K.L. Mishra, Shri K.B. Asthana (later a Judge and Chief Justice of the High Court) and Shri S.K. Varma (later a Judge and Chief Justice of the High Court) were all keen cricketers although their performance varied from time to time. We had also in our team Shri S.N. Katju, a Judge of the High Court who in his younger days was the University Cricket Captain. His younger brother Shri B.N. Katju, later a Judge and Chief Justice of the High Court was grand all rounder and a very good cricketer. He showed the same application as a Judge. We had in our team Shri K.B.L. Gaur who was a medium fast bowler and had not only captained the University Cricket team but also led the U.P. team in Ranji Trophy. Originally, our wicketkeeper was Shri H.N. Seth, who later on became Judge and Chief Justice of this Court as well as the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In course of time, his place as taken by Shri A.P. Mishra who is now Judge of this Court.”

Reflections

Hon’ble Mr Justice
J.S. Varma, Judge, Supreme Court
of India

Extracts from the above article – source: http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/event/reflections.html

“The galaxy of eminent men who belong to the Allahabad High
Court and have contributed to its pre-eminent position in the judicial field
should ever remain the inspiration and beacon light for its lawyers and Judges
whose obligation it is to preserve the rich heritage. Lawyers like Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru. Dr. K.N. Katju, Shri Kanhaiya Lal Misra, Shri Gopal Swarup
Pathak and Shri Jagdish Swarup and Judges like Sir Shah Mohammad Sulaiman and
Mahmood would be the pride of any legal institution anywhere in the world and they
belonged to the Allahabad High Court. The present generation must remain
cognizant of the rich heritage and strive to retain primacy of the institution
ensuring that it passes on the bright torch to the future generation. These
celebrations will have served a useful purpose it they rekindle the true spirit
of the legal profession in drawing sustenance from the hoary past and help to
enthuse and inspire the future generations to keep the torch burning brightly.
It is, in all humility, in this spirit I join as one who was inspired by the
legal luminaries of the profession in the Allahabad High Court whom I had the
benefit of seeing and hearing only from a distance as a Student at Allahabd. I
consider myself indebted to the Institution in this manner.”

C.M. condoles death of K.L. Mishra – 19^th Oct. 1975 Northern India Patrika

BY A STAFF REPORTER. ALLAHABAD October 18.

The Chief Minister of U.P. Shri H.N. Bahuguna has expressed his “shock” at the demise of former Advocate General Shri Kanhaiya Lal Misra in a condolence message. It was Shri Bahuguna who directed the Chief Secretary U.P. and D.M., Allahabad to accord full state honours to the departed legal luminary soon after he heard the news of the passing away of Sri Misra on Oct.15. A wreath was also placed on behalf of the Chief Minister by the District Magistrate.HINDI SAHITYA SAMMELANGlowing tributes were paid to Pt. Kanhaiya Lal Misra at a meeting of citizens and litraries held this evening in the premises of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. Sri Saraswati Prashad Chaturvedi presided over the meeting.Speakers at the meeting recalled his services as a legal luminary and also who did a lot towards propagating and enrichment of Hindi language and literature through the platform of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. The Hindi Sahitya Sammelan willremain closed on Monday as a mark of respect to Mr.Misra. Prominent amongst those who spoke were – Sri Prabhat Shashtri, Srinath Singh and Dr. Ratnakar Pandey.Smilarly at a meetin of the National Students Union presided over by Sri Arif Amin, Sri Mishra’s services to the people as a veteran Congressman were recalled.