THE GRAND JURIST

In Fali S. Nariman’s death, India has lost its conscience-keeper

- Faizan Mustafa

The light has gone out of the legal fraternity’s lives. In the death of eminent jurist Fali S. Nariman on February 21, India has lost one of its greatest conscience-keepers. I had invited him for an event at KIIT School of Law in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, in 2008. When one of the speakers went on and on, Nariman asked me to slip him a note with ‘KIS I’ written on it. Not understanding, I looked at him in confusion and he told me the speaker is to be told: “Keep it short, Idiot”. Nariman also wrote a personal letter to me on August 18 last year, appreciating an article I had written for The Indian Express, and asked me to write a book. There is probably no lawyer, no teacher of law in India, who does not have some such anecdote to narrate about the late jurist. India’s legal narrative cannot be written without referring to Nariman.