On Monday 22 July 2024 our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and Lincoln’s Inn Library hosted a sold-out event celebrating the careers of several distinguished judges of South Asian heritage who were members of the Inns of Court. The panel session, chaired by Chief Master Shuman, featured three fascinating presentations and which sparked an engaging Q&A discussion.

The event began with three presentations. The Rt Hon. Lord Justice Singh highlighted the significant yet often overlooked contributions of South Asian judges to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. His talk underscored the impact these judges have had on judicial decisions at the highest levels.

Following Lord Justice Singh, the Hon. Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb discussed the career of Justice Leila Seth, who achieved many ‘firsts,’ including becoming the first woman Chief Justice of a state High Court in India. Notably, Justice Seth’s son, renowned author Vikram Seth, was in attendance, honouring his mother’s legacy.

The final presentation was given by the Hon. Mr Justice Choudhury, who focused on the career of the Honourable Mustafa Kamal. Justice Kamal was a distinguished lawyer and judge, known for his promotion of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Bangladesh.

After the presentations, a Q&A session allowed attendees to engage with the speakers and delve deeper into the topics discussed.

The event concluded with a drinks reception in the Ashworth Centre, providing an opportunity for networking and further discussion. Amongst the attendees were the Chair of the Bar Council, Sam Townend KC; the Chair of the Bar Council’s Young Barristers’ Committee, Amrit Kaur Dhanoa; the Master of the Rolls and Immediate Past Treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn, Sir Geoffrey Vos; the Treasury Solicitor, Susanna McGibbon; and Anne Sharp, Under Treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn.

The success of this event, which took place during South Asian Heritage Month (18 July – 17 August) highlights the importance of recognising the contributions of South Asian judges within the legal profession.

A recording of the panel session is available below, offering those who could not attend the opportunity to experience this insightful event.

Video transcript

Chief Master Shuman: 

All right. Good evening, and welcome to The Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion and Library Forum, which is taking place during South Asian Heritage Month. And what better celebration than to have three groundbreaking current judges talking about groundbreaking historical South Asian judges? And Lord Justice Singh was born in Delhi and grew up in Bristol. He read law. He was called to the Bar in 1988 at Lincoln’s, and at 39 years of age, he was appointed a deputy High Court judge, and in 2011, a High Court judge. In 2017, he was the first person of any minority ethnic heritage to be appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal, and in 2018, he was appointed president of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. And last year, Lord Justice Singh sat on an appeal in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and it is believed that this is the first time since 1950 that a person of South Asian heritage has done so. So it seems particularly appropriate that Lord Justice Singh will be talking about the role played by South Asian judges in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Then, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb will be giving the next talk. She grew up in Leeds, called to the Bar in 1989 by Gray’s Inn, and she was the first Asian heritage woman to be appointed a Junior Treasury Counsel. In 2015, she was the first Asian heritage woman to be appointed as a High Court judge. And if anyone has not seen it already, I would commend you to watch her interview for the First 100 Years, because then this next comment will make sense, and what I’ll say is this. Space’s loss is the law’s gain, and it is fitting that Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb will be talking about Leila Seth, the first woman judge on the Delhi High Court and the first woman to become chief justice of a state of the High Court. And we are delighted that her son, Vikram Seth, and some of her family are here tonight.

And then last, but by no means least, Mr Justice Choudhury. In 1988, he graduated from the University of Glasgow with a bachelor of science in physics, before turning to law. He was called to the Bar in 1992 by Inner Temple, and in 2017, he was the first person of Bangladeshi heritage to be appointed a High Court judge. He served a three-year term as the president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, and is now a presiding judge of the Midland circuit. And he will be talking about Mustafa Kamal, the ninth chief justice of Bangladesh, and his pioneering work. So, Lord Justice Singh.

The Rt Hon. Lord Justice Singh: 

Karen, thank you very much indeed. It’s a pleasure to join you this evening. As you’ve heard, I’m going to speak about South Asian judges in the Privy Council, and in many ways, this is really just the beginning of a personal journey for me, because this is a subject that I suspect, like many in this room, I knew very little about indeed, and have to confess, still know very little about. But let me begin with my introduction to this subject.

As you’ve heard from Karen, last year, on the 20th of June, 2023, I sat as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in a constitutional appeal from Trinidad and Tobago, called Maharaj. And while I was there, I saw an intriguing painting. Some of you may have seen this. It hangs outside court number three at the Supreme Court in Parliament Square, which of course is now where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sits. Many of you will recall that it used to sit in Downing Street. And certainly when I was an advocate at the Bar, I can remember appearing in the Judicial Committee when it still sat in Downing Street, and towards the end of my career, I did appear in court number three at the Supreme Court building in some Privy Council appeals.

But this is a painting of an Indian judge who sat in the Judicial Committee, and I’m going to leave it deliberately vague at this stage, because we’re going to come back to this intriguing painting. Because I was left wondering, well, who was this person, and what’s his painting doing hanging in the Supreme Court building today?

Let me begin with a little early history. The Privy Council, known as the curia regis, traces its origins back to the 12th century. And as many of you will know, in 1599, the East India Company was established and began to trade, and then to occupy parts of Indian territory. In 1726, the company began to establish courts, in particular in the three cities which it had founded in the Subcontinent Bombay, today known as Mumbai, Calcutta, today known as Kolkata, and Madras, today known as Chennai. As far as I’ve been able to discern in my researches, the first Indian appeal to be heard in the Privy Council was in 1791.

I’ll give you a few key dates now from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1833, the Whig Government of the day wanted to place the Judicial Committee on a rational basis, and so in the Judicial Committee Act, they created what we now know as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, effectively becoming a court, and effectively becoming the highest court in the British Empire.

In 1858, after what many Indians now refer to as the First War of Independence, what used to be called in this country the Mutiny of 1857. The Crown imposed direct rule on India through the Government of India Act. And there began to become some concern, as I understand it, in India, that appeals had to be heard in London in the Privy Council, but that there were no judges who sat there who actually had specialist experience or knowledge of Indian law, particularly Hindu law and Muslim law. And so from 1872, there began to be lawyers and judges appointed to serve on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The first, as far as I’ve been able to discover, has the wonderful name of Sir Barnes Peacock, who was appointed in 1872, and there were then 17 judges and lawyers from India appointed to serve on the Judicial Committee over the next 75 years or so. And of those 17, most were what in the terminology of the time they used to call Europeans, in other words white people, and initially, Indians were only appointed as assessors. So they could sit on the board to advise the judges, but they were not fully fledged members, and didn’t sit as judges.

That changed in 1909, when the first Indian judge was appointed, as we shall see in a moment, to be a fully fledged judge of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And then we move forward to 1950, when shortly after the independence of India and Pakistan, both countries chose to abolish appeals to the Judicial Committee. And that’s why, as I understand it, and anyone here who knows different, please do correct me, but as far as I’ve been able to discover, that’s why it wasn’t until almost 75 years later that a judge of Indian origin again sat in the Judicial Committee.

But this is a statistic that may surprise you, but this is what I’ve discovered in my research, is that by the early 20th century, appeals from India were five times as many as the rest of the Empire put together, and there had to be created a specialist series of the law reports. And if you find that they’re gathering dust now in the Lincoln’s Inn Library, but there is a large series of law reports which are called Indian Cases. They are exclusively Indian appeals that were heard in the Privy Council.

Now, of the 17 judges that I’ve mentioned, seven were of South Asian heritage, and they came from different parts of what was then India, British India of course, and as we shall see, they included a Muslim judge. They included a judge who was the chief justice of Lahore, in other words, what would today be Pakistan. And in this depiction, you can see the dates of appointment. 1909 was the first, Syed Ameer Ali, a barrister of the Inner Temple. 1926, Satyendra Prasanna Baron Sinha, who was a member of this inn. In 1929, Sir Benaud Chandramita, also a member of this inn. In 1930, Sir Dinshah Fardunji Mulla, another member of this inn. In 1934, Sir Shadi Lal, called by Gray’s Inn. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1934. In 1939, there was appointed another member of Lincoln’s Inn, Mukund Ramrao Jayakar. And the last, in 1941, was Chettur Madhavan Nair, and I believe he served until the Supreme Court of India was created, after Indian independence, and that’s, as I said, when persons of Indian origin ceased any longer to sit on the Judicial Committee.

Now, time doesn’t permit, this evening, me to go through all seven judges, but I do want to tell you a little bit about three of them, and give you a little bit of their biographies. The first, as I’ve mentioned, was Syed Ameer Ali, appointed to the Judicial Committee in 1909. He was born in Bengal in 1849, and came to this country to study law in the late 1860s. He was admitted a student of the Inner Temple in 1870, and called to the Bar in 1873. He seems to have met lots of interesting people while he was here, including Napoleon III, who was by now in exile after he had been thrown out of France in the early 1870s, and he also met the Fawcetts, whom he accompanied to women’s suffrage meetings.

He then returned to Calcutta and built up a successful and lucrative practise there. He was in England in 1880 when he met his future wife, who was in fact an Englishwoman called Isabelle Ida. They married in London in 1884. He was then appointed in 1890 to serve on the Calcutta High Court, and served there until 1904. He seems to have been the second Muslim to be appointed to that High Court. As I’ve mentioned, he was appointed to the Judicial Committee in 1909. This was an unsalaried, and according to the Dictionary of National Biography, an onerous post. And he served there almost until his death in 1928. He had a residence in this country, and in fact, he died at the stately home where he now lived, Pollingfold Manor in Sussex, and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery.

Now, in this inn, we’re fortunate to have the coats of arms of at least three of these judges who sat in the Judicial Committee. And again, time doesn’t permit me to go through all of them. I’m extremely grateful to Dunstan Speight, our librarian at this inn, and for his team’s work, which has enabled me to find out a bit about these judges. But I particularly want to focus next on Baron Sinha, whose coat of arms you see in the middle there. Now, he was a student of this inn. Born in 1863, a student of this inn, and according to the Calcutta Law Journal of 1909, he was a brilliant student here, carrying off the Inns of Court scholarship and Lincoln’s Inn exhibitions in Roman law, jurisprudence, international law, common law, and equity, and was awarded a total of 550 Guineas. Now, some of you will know better than me what that would be in today’s money, but that sounds like quite a lot of money to me, so it was obviously a mark of the brilliance of this student of Lincoln’s Inn.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, he then returned to practise law in India. He was appointed standing counsel to the government of India in 1903, and in 1915, was elected to be president of the Indian National Congress. And he was obviously involved quite a lot in political affairs as well as legal affairs. In 1919, he was sworn to be a member of the Privy Council, and made parliamentary undersecretary of state for India. I suspect, although I don’t know for a fact, that he may have been the first Indian person to hold that kind of post. And he was also, at that point, raised to a peerage as Baron Sinha of Rajpur. It seems, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, that he was the first person of Indian origin to take sill in this country, which he did in 1918. He was made a bencher of this inn, I’m pleased to say, in 1926, and he served briefly as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Come back to that intriguing painting that we began this little journey with, and I can now tell you that that’s a portrait of Sir Shadi Lal, who was born in 1874, died in 1945. He was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn, admitted in 1896 and called in 1899, and was pointed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1934. Now, he is interesting for many reasons, one of which is that he was the first Indian lawyer to become a chief justice of any High Court in India. Having grown up and been educated in Northwest India, in Punjab, he practised in that part of British India. He was also a lecturer at the Punjab University Law College.

He was elected to the Legislative Council in 1909. In 1919, he was appointed a High Court judge in Lahore, which of course then was part of British India, and now is in Pakistan, as it happens, Karen will know this, my ancestral home. That’s where my grandfather used to have a home and a business. And Sir Shadi Lal was promoted to be chief justice of the Lahore High Court in 1920, as I say, becoming the first Indian to head any of the High Courts around India. And he was knighted in 1921. In 1934, he was appointed to serve on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but resigned in 1938, so that he could return to India.

Time doesn’t permit me to say more for now, but the reason I wanted to begin this evening’s talks with this brief account of judges of South Asian heritage who sat in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is that I suspect, like me, most people in this room had no idea that this country has this rich history, because it’s part of the history of this country as much as it’s part of the history of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. And I just feel, at a personal level, that it’s very important that we should remember people, and not forget them. Thank you very much.

Chief Master Shuman:   Thank you, and now Mrs. Justice Cheema-Grubb.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb: 

So, as you’ve heard, it was in March 1978 that Leila Seth was appointed a judge of the High Court in Delhi. In September 1990, she was made the acting chief justice of that High Court, and in 1991, she was appointed the chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in India. In all of these, she was the first woman ever to reach that rank, the High Court acting chief justice and chief justice. But there’s more. Going back even further in time, but much closer to where you’re all sitting today, in 1957 in London, Leila Seth became the first woman, the first woman, to top the Bar exam of England and Wales and take away the gold medal.

Today, nearly 70 years later, I have the honour of speaking about this outstanding figure in the Indian judiciary. In the short time available, I have chosen to speak about her values and what moulded her, rather than quoting to you from her many landmark judgments. So how do you capture the essence of an inspiring woman like that, and how could I bring her alive to you? Well, I’ve decided to try and draw three little vignettes of her life at different stages.

For the first, we travel to India. Leila Seth was born on Diwali, on October 20, 1930, in Lucknow. She was a longed-for daughter after two sons, in a comfortably off and progressive family. He father denounced the caste system, and when she was born, she said, “I’m not going to give her a dowry when she gets married. She’ll have to stand on her own two feet.” She was always treated the same as her brothers, and Leila Seth later said that her parents gave her the greatest gift, which was a good education, and taught them to stand up for the things that they believed in, and to be counted.

Leila’s early life was marked by the death of her beloved father when she was just 11 years old. Her family lost their home. They were taken in by friends, and her mother sacrificially ensured that the children’s education was continued. Leila went to the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling, where she loved the nuns and excelled in her education. It was no surprise that she managed to get the highest mark in the whole of undivided Bengal, in the Cambridge School Certificate, and heeding her father’s words that she’d need to look after herself and make her own way, she then took a secretarial course.

So imagine, this beautiful, intelligent, promising girl facing life with many challenges in an India which had shaken off British rule, but was still a place of great inequalities. Recently, I met Leila’s son, Vikram Seth, who’s in the audience today, and it’s wonderful that you could come. And he embodies many of her values, as well as her intellectual and reflective nature. And I don’t know if his mother was an inspiration for Lata, the girl for whom a groom is sought in that brilliant novel, A Suitable Boy, but I suspect that the fictional and real women share an approach to life. He gives Lata the following words “‘I’m not afraid of how things will turn out,’ she said to herself. I’m afraid of how I will turn out.'”

Her father’s influence on Leila was very deep. He loved books. He taught his children that a balanced diet was to have two books on the go at the same time, one fiction and one serious. When as a government official, he was offered bribes, he was horrified, and she saw this. Leila’s attachment to transparent ethics is rooted in one of her father’s memorable sayings. He used to say, “Whereas on a grey or black sheet, many marks may go unobserved, on a white sheet, even a speck of grey will show.”

So Leila married Prem, who worked for Bata Shoes, in March 1951, when she was 20. She continued working as a stenographer while she achieved a first, of course she did, in English literature at Calcutta University. In 1952, she gave birth to Vikram, and then her husband moved, and she came with him, to London for three years. In 1954, Leila had to decide what she was going to do while her workaholic husband pursued technical developments in shoe manufacture, which was his work.

Initially, she obtained a Montessori certificate, a diploma, and then she was perusing a careers encyclopaedia, which told her, quote, “Of the many qualities that go to make a successful barrister, the most important appear to be a sound constitution, quickness of thought, and a certain nimbleness of wit.” It added, “Patience and thoroughness are also important attributes.” Leila thought she could claim the last two at least, and the mode of study for the Bar at that time was much more compatible with looking after a young child than alternatives. So her choice to read for the Bar was that practical and that simple.

She chose to become a member of Lincoln’s Inn because the library had been left intact by the war, and, again very practical, because it was located close to 7 Stone Buildings, where the Council of Legal Education was. During her year, she had heard great reviews of the lawyer who taught divorce law. The lectures were held between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., and she decided to go along. However, once, when she got home, her husband was already there, and in a foul mood, sullen and sarcastic, because on entering a dark and unwelcoming house, he’d had to turn on the lights himself. She decided to drop her intention of studying divorce as a subject for fear of its occurrence at home.

In 1957, a notable year, their second child, Shantum, was born in April. She took the Bar exam in September. The results were published to great acclaim in The Times Newspaper at midnight on the 27th of October. But not everyone congratulated her. On the 2nd of November, an editorial appeared in The Evening Standard. It declared this, “Help! Help! The masculine world of learning was taking a remunerative pill and pulling on its pipe when a complete chasm appeared from which nothing has been heard save faint little gasps for help.” This was the publication of the Michaelmas Bar Exam results. 508 students, the vast majority of them male, sat the final papers. Of these, only 152 passed in full. 10 obtained distinction. Of these 10, three were women, and one of them, a married woman, came first. It continued that, “A man’s place in society appears to be undergoing a certain process of deflation.”

After those three happy years in England, the family returned to India, and Leila Seth decided to join the Patna High Court. But it wasn’t an entirely smooth start, even for the star at the Bar. She had to find a senior advocate to begin working with, and she decided to try for the very best that there was. His name was Mr. Satyen Chowdhury. It was hard to get a meeting with such an important man. He was far too busy to see her. With some considerable effort and in-trepidation, she managed to meet him in his chambers, but her reception was not promising. Mr. Chowdhury expressed his opinion that women were not suited for the hurly-burly of the profession, and they should get married instead.

She told him, “Sir, I am already married.” “Well, then,” came the retort, “you should go on and have a child.” “Sir, I have a child.”

Taken aback, after awhile, he said, “It’s unfair for the child to be alone. Young lady, you should have another one.”

“Well, actually,” she said, “I have two children.”

And that seemed to seal the deal. So Mr. Chhoudry said, “You are so persistent, you can come and join chambers, you will make a good lawyer.”

Her husband, Premer, had a high flying career in business. The family lived in a grand, Empire-era house provided by his employers, which had once belonged to the Maharajah of Champur, and she was driven to court in a beautiful black Plymouth Belvedere. These were happy years.

She resisted being pigeonholed in her practise. She took a strategic approach to her career. She quickly established a reputation as a formidable lawyer, known for her incisive legal mind, and unwavering integrity.

She took on the hardest cases she could find, in constitutional law, tax, and commercial law. But she also looked out for opportunities to do advocacy, and to appear in the court, so she could become known.

The first case she argued was an appeal. Her client had been sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for gang robbery. She had no idea how to argue the appeal. She ended up looking at the date of the offence in the almanack. It turned out that the crime had been committed on a dark night, when the witnesses could only have made an identification by the light of their lantern.

So she studied the record of the proceedings very, very closely. And it turned out that the lantern was an exhibit, had no oil in it. And so, she was able to argue that there had been a false identification, and the appeal was won.

Now, we all remember how sweet was our first victory in court, and that was hers. However, misogyny was never too far. Leila Seth suffered from her fellow Julia lawyers, and from judges.

Rumours were spread about her, that she didn’t really have to work, because if she wasn’t interested in a case, she just wouldn’t pursue it. But the older advocates, to whom she was no threat, saw how hard she worked, how bright she was, and they were helpful.

One of them, when he became the senior standing counsel in the Income Tax Department, insisted that Leila Seth be made junior standing counsel. After a decade in Bukna, Leila Seth’s family moved to Calcutta for just three years, before settling in Delhi.

Leila found getting work in the courts meant almost starting over again. But she had built such a strong adversarial style, courteous and detached, rather emotive, but underpinned by an excellent memory, legal knowledge, as an ability to think on her feet. Whoever wrote the Career Encyclopaedia would have approved, I suspect.

When she met setbacks, she persevered. In one case, she was sent a brief to give an opinion in a complicated company tax matter. She worked hard on it, to show her degree of learning. She sent it back.

Many months later, she was told that when the opinion was sent to the client company, they were not at all happy, and wanted to know why the firm they had instructed, had not contained, sorry, not obtained a proper male opinion.

So the solicitor sent the case to the best male lawyer in the field, along with Lelia’s opinion, and the brief was sent back, with these words: “After due deliberation, all I can do is endorse the opinion given.”

Leila realised that, in order to make headway in Delhi, she had to be not as good as the best man, but what she called “equal plus.” This was particularly so in the hectic rooms of the Supreme Court, where she soon found herself advocating.

So, the 1970s were a time of turmoil in India. The government of Indira Gandhi declared an emergency. There was a failure by the courts to uphold the rights of individuals, and of the press, but when they did, the government prevented the cases being reported.

This was a perilous time for lawyers. Leila Seth was appointed as a senior advocate, which is the equivalent of [inaudible 00:34:49], to the Supreme Court, in 1977. Her family did not escape the injustice of the political situation. A speculative inquiry was instituted against Prem, and it was alleged that he had been involved in taking bribes. This affected his wife, and the whole family.

The inquiry spread abroad. There was absolutely nothing in it whatsoever, but it lasted 10 months before it was closed, with nothing untoward found.

For this second vignette, we see Leila Seth in 1978, when, after 17 years in practise, she reached the bench. She was appointed to the Delhi High Court, by the then-Chief Justice, Chief Justice Chandrachud, who is the father of the current Chief Justice, who, Rabinder and I, and others in the audience, have met several times.

Her tenure at that court was marked by numerous landmark judgments, far too many to mention in this short talk, but she excelled in the areas of constitutional law, family law, and human rights, in particular.

One of her famous judgments expanded the rights of women in property matters, thereby advancing the cause of gender equality. How proud her father would have been. But it didn’t begin auspiciously, you might think.

Having been sworn in as a new High Court judge, you would normally sit with the Chief Justice in that high court, to learn from him. In Delhi, the Chief Justice was called Justice Tattachari, and he simply refused to sit with her. He said, “I just can’t do it.” And it wasn’t that he doubted her ability. No, the socially conservative judge was apprehensive of how it would look, if he was sitting with a woman, because it meant not just sitting openly in court, but then, together, alone, in their closed chambers, with discussion and decision.

In 1990, she was appointed Acting Chief Justice at Delhi High Court, and a top secret telephone was installed in her home. And she was told, under no circumstances, could anyone except her, answer it. She wondered what awesome event would have to happen, for it to be used.

In fact, it only rang once. And it was a wrong number.

Leila Seth was tapped on the shoulder, metaphorically, for the Supreme Court, on more than one occasion. She was excited at the prospect, and of course, honoured. But she was never appointed.

She evaluated the way those decisions were made in her fascinating autobiography, which I recommend, On Balance. Her observation was that political lobbying and male chauvinism remained the default attitude. And she was living through a time when many senior men, including judges, believed that women should not compete with men in India, but stay at home, and look after them.

Even years later, when, as a member of the Fifteenth Law Commission of India, she suggested that marital rape should be treated as a crime, her colleagues were thoroughly alarmed. So it was that in 1991, Leila Seth reached the pinnacle of her judicial career, where no woman had been before, as the respected Chief Justice of the High Court in Shina, a beautiful hill province, where she spent 15 months, before she reached the age of retirement for Chief Justices and all High Court judges in India, which is a youthful 62.

So, for the third vignette, I want to look at Leila Seth’s third stage in her life. It was as impactful as any of us could hope for.

This photo is of Lelia and Premer, just before their golden wedding anniversary. Beyond the bench, Leila Seth was a vocal advocate for legal reforms, women’s rights, and she defended the rights of the LGBTQ+ community passionately, not fearing to question even the Supreme Court, in its decision.

During her tenure at the Indian Law Commission, after her retirement, it produced 18 reports. And just look at the breadth of its subjects: biodiversity, patents, and a uniform civil code, terrorism law, electoral reform, the property rights of women, the provision of free universal schooling, and the laws governing child labour, selected to join the important, three-person Justice Verma Committee, about which I could speak for several hours, just on its own. Her recommendations were pivotal in the overhaul of sexual assault rules, and the introduction of voyeurism and stalking, as crimes.

Truly, she has left an indelible mark on Indian jurisprudence. For Leila Seth’s legacy is not just limited or confined to her professional achievements. As a mother, she nurtured and encouraged her children, finding delight in their very different lives.

As one-half of a marriage lasting more than 60 years, she said that their secret was, although they were very different, in many ways, they had faith in each other, cared for, loved and understood each other, and took pride in each other’s achievements and success.

Her husband Prem, she said, brought out the best in her. As a young woman, she knew she had potential. But she said it was only after marriage to him, that she flowered.

For Justice Leila Seth, a just society, like a good marriage, is an equally balanced one. She said, “I am one of those who wishes to walk hand in hand, not a step in front, or a step behind.”

She died, aged 86, in May 2017, at her home near Delhi. Much that she fought to eliminate continues. Sexism remains an international blight on the progress of women. In India, and in parts of the diaspora, dowry demands, and the misery that flows from them, continue, despite being outlawed.

But I want to let her speak to you, so I’m going to leave the last word to Justice Leila Seth, in the closing remarks of her TED Talk that she recorded in 2015, where she makes her repeated plea, for fairness for girls.

Chief Master Shuman:   Thank you. Thank you. And now, Mr. Justice Choudhury.

The Hon Mr Justice Choudry:

Thank you. I’m delighted and honoured, to be able to speak to you tonight, about Chief Justice Mustafa Kamal.

I’d be very surprised if any of you, or many of you, had heard about Chief Justice Kamal, before reading about this talk. After all, he was only Chief Justice of Bangladesh for about 10 months.

I knew that he had been the Chief Justice of Bangladesh, that he was responsible for some seminal decisions in Bangaldeshi jurisprudence, and that he was hugely respected, by all who worked with him.

But I knew very little about the man behind those headline achievements. Doing the research for this talk has been a great practise, and I think Dunstan Speight, for his assistance in this regard.

Had I not done that research, I would not know quite what a remarkable man he was, how groundbreaking his achievements in the role were, and how he has left a lasting legacy, that still benefits Bangladesh and its citizens to this day.

Chief Justice Kamal was born in 1935, in a little-known village called Domar, in the Rampur District, in what was then that part of British India known as Bengal, and is now Northern Bangladesh. He hailed, not as you might expect, from a family of jurists, but from a family of musicians, poets, and singers.

But this wasn’t just any family, with a passion for music. His father, Abasid Hudin Achmed, was one of the greatest exponents of Bengali language folk music, and is still revered to this day. He specialised in a genre called Bhawaiya, and sang songs written by the Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh.

Kazi Nazrul Islam’s wrting explored many themes, such as freedom, humanity, and love, as well as equality, justice, and religious devotion. Although, as we know, Mustafa Kamal went on to become a lawyer, perhaps influenced by the subject matter of some of the songs that were written by Kazi Nazrul Islam, his vocation was something of an aberration in the Kamal dynasty.

Mustafa Kamal’s sister, Miss Fedozi Rahman, a well-known playback singer, who sang on many popular films in the 1960s. His brother, Zahman Abbasi, is a musicologist, who still serves as a senior research scholar for music and poetry, in the university in Bangladesh.

His daughter, Nashid Kamal, is a well-known vocalist, and Kazi Nazrul exponent. And his granddaughter, Amin Musa, is the first Bangladeshi composer to have contributed to a Grammy-nominated album.

With all that musical talent flowing through his veins, one has to wonder why Mustafa Kamal did not also choose music as a career. Perhaps it was because, instead of singing about justice he decided he would like to dispense it. I like to think it was probably because he couldn’t think for peanuts. But whatever the reason, music’s loss was to be law’s gain. He was a brilliant scholar. After outstanding results in the University of Dhaka, he came to the London School of Economics on a scholarship, in the mid 1950’s, to study political science.

It was while he was studying at LSE that Mustafa Kamal decided to study for the bar, but not after his political science qualification, at the same time. He completed both successfully, and was called to the bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1959. It’s difficult to imagine now, some 65 years later what an immense challenge it must’ve been for the later Chief Justice Kamal to make his way in London at that time, with his young wife, Husne, Ara, also a post-grad student. It was not a welcoming place for foreigners.

Mustafa and Husne had been renting a small apartment in London, but when Husne fell pregnant with her first child, the landlady suddenly and unexpectedly gave them notice to quit, the reason being that she did not want any babies in her property, at least that’s the reason she gave. The couple then had to search desperately for another place to live, and eventually found somewhere just in time before their child was born. Upon his return to what was then East Pakistan in 1961, Mustafa Kamal started practise as a barrister in the then high court of East Pakistan, based in Dhaka.

He quickly developed a large practise in all areas of law, but never one to focus his intellectual energies on just one task, he also maintained a part time lecturing position in the University of Dhaka. This continuing desire to fill his time as much as possible meant that it was not too long before appointments in the new administration of Bangladesh beckoned. Bangladesh gained independence in 1971. In 1976 he was appointed additional attorney general of Bangladesh, and in 1977 he was appointed advocate general.

His judicial career commenced in 1979 with his appointment to the Supreme Court, High Court division. And just 10 years later he was elevated to the Appellate Division, which is the apex court of Bangladesh. In May 1999 he was appointed to be the ninth chief justice of Bangladesh. During his time in the Appellate Division, Mustafa Kamal issued many wise and respected judgements, on subjects ranging from the right to bring proceedings against the government, to the rights of women upon divorce. But the one judgement  for which he’s perhaps most famous is the case of Masdar Hossain, decided in 1999 during his brief time as chief justice.

The dispute in Masdar Hossain concerned the inclusion of members of the lower judiciary within the various corridors that made up the Bangladesh Civil Service. This led to the terms of appointment, pay and conditions of judges in lower tiers being decided on a par with members of the general administrative civil service. A group of 223 district judges and other lower tier judges petitioned the court for declarations that these arrangements were unconstitutional, in that they failed to ensure that the judiciary was separate from the executive.

The Supreme Court agreed with the petitioners and its decision was largely upheld by the Appellate Division. Chief Justice Kamal gave the lead judgement . I should mention that advocates in that case included the great Dr. Kamal Hossain, known in Bangladesh as the father of the constitution, as he had a large hand in drafting it. Incidentally, Dr. Kamal Hossain was also called to the bar in 1959 by Lincoln’s Inn. And this talk about groundbreaking south Asian lawyers could equally have been about him or any one of number, several others. Mustafa Kamal considered that the incorporation of parts of the judiciary in the, in the general civil service was quote, “A monumental constitutional blunder, committed during the early years of liberation. The harmful legacy of which is the dogged and headstrong denial of the proper and rightful institutional status of the members of the judicial service and magistrates exercising judicial functions.”

The judgement  which draws upon the jurisprudence of the Canadian Supreme Court and the Indian Supreme Court, amongst others, emphasises the importance of judicial independence. The essential conditions of which were security of tenure, security of remuneration and institutional independence from parliament and the executive. The judgement  concluded with 12 declarations, which were directives, effectively, to the government, to bring about constitutionally compliant means of- of appointing, remunerating and controlling the subordinate judiciary.

As well as declaring that various statutory instruments were ultra vires, were beyond the power of the executive, Chief Justice Kamal stated that there should be an independent judicial service commission that makes appointment to judiciary on merit. This commission, he said, should have, quote, “The objective of achieving equality between men and women in recruitment.” However, it wasn’t until 2007, almost eight years later, that the Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission was actually established. And unfortunately many of the 12 directives in that judgement  are yet to be implemented.

The decision in Masdar Hossain was undoubtedly brave. You have to remember that Bangladesh was and still is a relatively young country. Its democracy is fragile, and had already been put under strain by a number of military coups by that stage. Current events in the news are testimony to how fragile that democracy still is. And whilst the separation of powers is written into the constitution, a true separation of powers in that sort of environment can only be a work in progress. The judgement  results were well ahead of its time. It’s express reference to achieving actual equality in recruitment between men and women was bold and potentially transformative for a judiciary that was at the time almost entirely male dominated.

The Masdar Hossain case is more than just a landmark judgement , it is rightly considered to be one of the most important constitutional decisions in Bangladesh’s 53 year history, and is still required reading for students of Bangladeshi constitutional law. Not all chief justices can say that about one of their judgements. The retirement age for judges in Bangladesh is a truly decrepit 67, probably the average age of English judges, I think. Chief Justice Kamal was appointed to his role just days before his 66th birthday, and had to step down less than a year later. However, what he went on to achieve in retirement was perhaps of even greater significance than his judgement  in the Masdar Hossain case. At that time in the early 2000’s, delays in the civil justice system in Bangladesh were measured not in years but in decades.

Civil disputes were taking on average 12 to 15 years to resolve, with many taking up to 25 years from issuing the claim to final order. People were literally inheriting litigation from their parents. There wasn’t much incentive within the system to achieve change. Defendant lawyers were being paid handsomely to delay matters incessantly, by bringing numerous applications, and the course lacked effective case management powers to move things on and reduce the backlog. In 2002, the World Bank funded a project to build capacity to resolve disputes more efficiently. One of the strategies to do this was to implement alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, including through mediation, which at that time was completely non-existent in Bangladesh.

However the project would have no chance of succeeding without someone with authority and influence in charge. Someone who’s respected enough to be listened to and forceful enough to effect real change. That person was Chief Justice Kamal. He well understood the need for change, encapsulating the problem in a keynote speech on ADR, which he delivered in 2003. And I paraphrase slightly, “Cases take several years to reach settlement date, and by the date of hearing, half a dozen or more cases are fixed for hearing, resulting in the hearing of none. In the meantime, years roll by, the presiding judge of a single case is transferred a number of times, witnesses of a single case may be heard by more than one presiding judge, arguments are listened to by another and judgement  may be delivered by yet another, who had no connection to the case before.”

“Our legal system has thus become uncaring, unaccountable and formalistic. It delivers formal justice and it is oblivious of the sufferings and woes of litigants, of their waste of money, time and energy, sometimes for decades.” He went on to say that winning a case in the environment was truly a Pyrrhic victory. Chief Justice Kamal was tireless in his pursuit of the introduction of ADR in Bangladesh, and many who worked with him in the years that he led the project have remarked on his energy, his resolve, his wisdom and his passion for access to justice.

It took several years, but eventually ADR and mediation in particular started to take hold. Hundreds of judges and mediators are trained to conduct mediations, and currently several thousand cases a year are resolved through mediation, far more quickly and cheaply than going through the court. The significant and important change in the legal culture of Bangladesh was largely donned to Mustafa Kamal. There is no surprise that he’s sometimes referred to as the father of ADR in Bangladesh. Chief Justice Kamal passed away in January 2015, at the age of 82, but will always be remembered as the chief justice who placed judicial independence at the forefront of constitutional thinking in Bangladesh, and who enabled access to justice for millions through the introduction of ADR.

I leave you with an extract from his inauguration speech as chief justice, in which he recognised that dispensing justice is a service to the public, and in which he remarked on the scrutiny which judges must withstand. Remarks which may be thought even more relevant now than they were when delivered 25 years ago. And again, I paraphrase slightly. “We have to remember that our attendance in court, our performance, our demeanour and our behaviour outside court are now subject matter of constant public scrutiny and discussion. We cannot get away from public criticism if our conduct fails to reach the standard expected from the highest court of the country. The people of this country are alert and watchful of every move of ours, whether our disposal of cases is satisfactory or not, whether we administer the law and interpret it in accordance with long established norms, or whether we play to the gallery and try to be popular, or are seeking publicity, are all noticed and noted by the vigilant people of this country. My hope and prayer can only be that we fulfil the people’s expectations.” Thank you very much.