#books
M K Nambyar,
by K K Venugopal.
The biography of Barrister M K Nambyar makes fascinating reading. Barrister Nambyar, അ great son of Kerala is not much known beyond the legal fraternity. He is forever interred in the annals of history as the great lawyer who argued the first constitutional case in the history of the Supreme Court of the new Republic of India under a new Constitution. The case A K Gopan vs the State of Madras was against preventing detetention. AKG was the onlky leader who was not freed even after tge country became independent. The case laid the framework of the fundamental rights as an integral part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
Though Nambyar was basically the doyen of the Madras High Court he was called upon to argue the important constitutional case, The Golaknath case. Nambyar was again entrusted with the Kesavananda Bharati case, but because of his advanced age, he entrusted it to Nani Palkhivala. It is the landmark case which ensured the primacy of the basic structure of the Coibstituiton and earned Palkhivala, the accolade as the greatest lawyer in the country.
The fact that the biography is written by his son KK Venugopal, vone of the foremost lawyers produced by the country gives the book authenticity as well as access to same rare anecdotes from the life of Barrister Nambyar. Venugopal, a former Attorney General of India till he resigned due to advanced age, have several distinguished judicial personalities who trained under him including YV Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India.
MK Nambyar was born as the son of A C Raman Nair, second in command of the prestigious Echikanom tharavadu, one of the biggest landlords owning thousands of acres of land in the present Kasargode district, Kerala ( then part of the South Canara district of British India ).
He started practice under the legal giant Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer, then Advocate General of Madras Presidency. He later shifted to Mangalore where he later became the Public Prosecutor. Nambyar mover to Madras when he was requested to take over the flourishing practice of PT Raman Nair on his appointment as judge of the High Court.
Earlier Nambyar had been sent by his family to England to assist in a case in the Privy Council ( the supreme court of the British Empire ). He returned after passing LLM from the London School of Economics and as a Barrister from Middle Temple. However the new chief of the Echikanom family refused to pay his bills and it was borne by his brother in law KK Nambyar who was the Chief Engineer of Madras State.
The book gives important details of the landmark cases handled by the legal giant. The author quotes liberally from several important judgments which would make the book a collectors item in the legal world.
For readers of Malayalam, I would recommend as additional reading, the autobiography of K Madhavan, great freedom fighter and communist, and the step brother of MK Nambyar.
– Joy Kallivayalil.
