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Ram Jethmalani (born September 10, 1923) is an Indian politician and a famous and controversial criminal lawyer.
He was born at Shikharpur in Sind (now in Pakistan), in 1923.
Jethmalani is considered a maverick and has many distinctions to his credit. He started life very early, and after being given a triple-promotion in school and after completing his LL.B. at the age of 17, he was too young to join the Bar. But, after persuading the Chief Justice of Sind to pass a special resolution to relax the rules, he entered the profession with a vengeance.
He married Shrimati Ratna Jethmalani, his first wife, in 1947, and Durga, his second wife, when he moved to Bombay, after partition. As they had already married before independence, it was just a ceremony to renew their vows. As a law at that time in the Presidency of Bombay disallowed bigamy, he married his second wife in Delhi. He has 2 sons and 2 daughters, two of whom, Mahesh Jethmalani and Rani Jethmalani are also well known lawyers.
He has been a member of parliament consecutively since 1987.
In 2004, he contested against the then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee as an independent candidate from Lucknow with the support of Indian National Congress and lost.
He is a well known face amongst the legal community in India. Even though he is primarily known as only a criminal lawyer, he has appeared in many high profile cases. He has taken-up unpopular defense cases such as defending the killers of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, people involved in market scams (Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh), and a host of gangsters and smugglers including the British citizen Daisy Angus who was acquitted of hashish smuggling after serving 5 years in jail. Recently he was in the news for taking up the defense of Manu Sharma, prime accused in the Jessica Lall murder case, however, he failed to get Manu Sharma acquitted. [1].
His in-depth knowledge of criminal law and his sharp cross-examination skills are well-known [unfounded claim]. He has a penchant for making startling (and often unfounded) public revelations as was evident during his defence of Harshad Mehta [cite]. Jethmalani went to make much-publicized claim that the then Prime Minister took a vast sum as bribe from Harshad. He was also involved in defending Manu Sharma in the Jessica Lal murder case. [2]...it is said he pays upto rs. 1.5 crores as tax every alternate day.....n charges anywhere between Rs. 5-10 lakhs per day....
See also
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