Fali S. Nariman: seven decades of reading, argument and principle

From Rangoon to the Bombay bar

Nariman was born on 10 January 1929 in Rangoon, Burma, now Yangon in Myanmar, into a Parsi family. His father, Sam Nariman, had moved there in 1927 to open a branch office of the New India Assurance Company.

He studied law at Government Law College in Bombay, now Mumbai, and after graduating in 1950 began his practice at the Bombay High Court. Law Asia, the legal journal on whose editorial board he later served, notes that he was one of the first generation of lawyers to start work soon after the Constitution was adopted, and that his early practice was largely in commercial law.

In his autobiography, Before Memory Fades, he recalled advice from the senior lawyer C. K. Daphtary: that thinking about a case matters more than simply reading the brief. Law Asia records that he followed it.

“Law is a matter of the heart, as well as the head. You have to have compassion; it is one of the greatest qualities.”

— Fali S. Nariman, via Bar & Bench

Delhi, the Supreme Court and a resignation

In 1971 he was designated a Senior Advocate and moved to Delhi to practise in the Supreme Court. Around the same time he was appointed Additional Solicitor General of India, one of the government's senior law officers.

When the Emergency was declared in June 1975, he resigned from that post in protest. Law Asia describes the resignation as a one-line letter, and calls him one of the few who placed individual conscience above political convenience.

Cases that shaped constitutional law

Over the following decades Nariman appeared in many landmark cases. Bar & Bench lists among them the Golaknath case on Parliament's power over Fundamental Rights, Minerva Mills, where the Court held that the power to amend the Constitution is itself limited, and the TMA Pai case on minority educational rights under Article 30. LiveLaw adds the Kesavananda Bharati case, the source of the basic structure doctrine, which he defended for the rest of his life.

He also argued a series of cases on how judges are appointed, including the 1993 Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association case and the later challenge to the National Judicial Appointments Commission. In the Bhopal gas disaster litigation he represented Union Carbide, and the case ended in a settlement approved by the Supreme Court.

Alongside his practice he was President of the Bar Association of India from 1991 to 2010 and a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha from 1999 to 2005. He received the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2007. His books include The State of the Nation, God Save the Hon'ble Supreme Court and, in 2023, You Must Know Your Constitution.

Fali S. Nariman died in Delhi on 21 February 2024, aged 95. His son, Rohinton Nariman, served as a judge of the Supreme Court.

The skills and habits that made the difference

The first was reading. LiveLaw, in a tribute by a lawyer who knew him for years, describes him as an avid reader of books, newspapers and journals across many subjects, who saw reading as a way to sharpen the mind as well as a pleasure.

The second was thinking before speaking. Daphtary's advice, to spend time thinking about a case rather than only reading the papers, is the habit he chose to remember in his own memoir.

The third was principle. Bar & Bench recalls him telling them in 2010 that law needs the heart as well as the head, and that compassion is one of the greatest qualities a lawyer can have. His resignation in 1975 showed he was willing to act on his beliefs.