Known to his clients as the “big picture guy” Raian Karanjawala is the co-founder and managing partner of Karanjwala & Co, which he started with his wife Manik.

Read his amazing journey from a barsati (a one-room apartment on the terrace with a verandah outside) in Maharani Bagh,New Delhi, with two desks, to one of India’s most influential law firms, serving everyone from governments and companies in trouble to celebrities and street vendors in distress.

ON A DEFINING CASE

If I were to pick one case out, it would be “S.P. Gupta vs Union of India”, which is known as the“First Judges Case”.  This was a case that was worked on by both me and my wife when we were in P.H. Parekh & Company.

It was a case filed by various people against the Government of India, challenging what they alleged was an assault on the independence of the judiciary. My father-in-law, V.M. Tarkunde was one of the Petitioners in that case, and Soli J. Sorabjee was his counsel.

On behalf of the Bombay Bar Association, Iqbal Chagla had filed a case in his own name, and the lead counsel in that case was H.M. Seervai, who was not only India’s leading constitutionallawyer, but was also one of the leading constitutional experts in the world.

Assisting him were K.S. Cooperand Mr.Avinash Rana, Sr. Advocates, both of whom were outstanding lawyers, and on record, was Jehangir Gagrat of Gagrat & Company.

On the other side, was Lal Narain Sinha, the then Attorney General, K. Parasaran, the then Solicitor General, and P.R. Mridul.

Many other counsels also appeared in that case which went on for almost three to four months before a bench of seven Judges, and therefore, it threw up many different questions of law, constitutional, administrative, and otherwise, and I think, if I look back, this was the one case that was truly instructive.
                                                                                  

In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian

Follow sangeeth @sangeethspeak