BY V. P. KRISHNAN NAMBIAR, M.A., B.L.
(Advocate, Madras)
ACCORDING to the English calendar, July 16, 1948 is
the first anniversary of the passing away of Sri B. Sitarama Rao, at the age of
sixty seven, in his native village of Buntwal in South Kanara. He practiced for
over forty-two years at the Madras Bar, and won recognition as a front-rank
lawyer of exceptional ability and learning. He had a brilliant career in the
St. Aloysius’ College, Mangalore, and the Law College, Madras. He served his
apprenticeship in Law under the late P. R. Sundara Aiyar (who became a Judge of
the High Court), and was enrolled as a High Court Vakil, in 1904. In his
master’s office, he grew up along with many others like Sir C. V. Ananthakrishna
Aiyar and Sri Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar. Soon, Sri Sitarama Rao built up a
lucrative practice, and drew around him a large clientele, who sought his
advice not merely as a professional lawyer with mercenary interest in his
briefs, but as a gentleman of culture and erudition, with whom it was a
pleasure to be associated. No wonder that the growing years saw him make
headway at the Bar as a Presidency lawyer, though he had trekked to the
metroplis as a total stranger, with no legal blood in his veins, no godfather
to support him, or feeder lines in the mofussil to think of. From humble
beginnings he worked his way to the forefront, by his assiduous industry,
devotion to work, a high code of professional conduct, suavity of manners, and
ability to unravel the tangled facts of a complicated case and to present them
with unique fairness to the opponent, equipoise of mind, and a temper which
never gave way even under provocation. With such sterling qualities to his
credit, he was admired and respected, and during the last fifteen years and
more of his career, he was one of the leaders of the Appellate Bar of the
Madras High Court. In those years, there was hardly an important appeal in
which Sri Sitarama Rao was not briefed for one side or other, and he gave without
stint his matchless legal acumen to the presentation of his case, as the pages
of the Law Reports will amply bear out.
As an advocate, there was nothing spectacular about
him. He never knew to play to the gallery. In his advocacy there was no
bumptiousness or verbiage, no rhetorical flourishes or forensic flair. To a
superficial observer who watched him at his brief, or to an up-country litigant
who sojourned in the corridors of the High Court, he might have appeared to be
prosaic and meek, if not altogether dull and wear some. It was perhaps more the
lawyer in him that won him his case, than his persuasive advocacy. With a
profound knowledge of case law–English and Indian–up-to-date, he was always on
an easy wicket in his briefs, and could cleanly dispose of the bowling of even
the most vigorous opponent with measured steadiness and unalloyed thoroughness
of study. There was hardly a branch of law in which Sri Sitarama Rao was not
equally at home–whether it was a knotty problem in the Hindu or Muhammadan Law,
a novel question of Malabar Law, a complicated matter in International Law, an
abstruse subject in Constitutional Law, a vexed reference under the Indian
Income Tax Act, or an unsettled point in the law of Limitation or Wills, not to
mention other spheres. In all of them he proved his mettle as a great lawyer or
scholarship and thoroughness, which won the ungrudging respect of the Judges
before whom he appeared, and of his compeers at the Bar. He was an authority on
Malabar Law, on which his published work, though somewhat out of date at the
moment, still remains the standard book.
Shy and retiring by disposition, Sri Sitarama Rao
never courted publicity. The prizes of office or the laurels of the profession
were nothing to him before the dignity of the Bar and the self-respect of its
members. He never hankered after appointments, though he was prepared to serve
if they came to him unsought. For him the very limitations of service deprived
it of much of its attraction. Sri Sitarama Rao preferred the lonely splendour
of the Bar to the golden haze of the Bench. When in 1938, the Congress Ministry
of the day appointed him as the Government Pleader, it was hailed with
universal approbation. No wiser choice could have been made by the Government,
and it was an official recognition long overdue.
In his work as a Law Officer of the Crown, he fully
justified the wisdom of his choice and the high hopes that were entertained at
his appointment. Even after he vacated the Government Pleadership in 1941, the
Government of Madras retained him as their special Government Pleader in the
Koothali Estate Escheat Appeal and connected cases from North Malabar, wherein
a huge stake and intricate questions of law were involved,–a tribute at once to
his successful role as Government Pleader in 1938-41 and the high confidence
that the Government had in him.
Sri Sitarama Rao was not a politician like some of
his contemporaries at the Madras Bar. But in his early years he was an active
member of the Liberal school of politics. Latterly his increasing professional
work gave him to time for anything else, and he turned out to be a mere learned
academician instead of a seasoned soldier in politics. But he was a nationalist
to his finger-tips, and continued to take an abiding interest in the politics
of the country. As a true nationalist in outlook and conviction, he was a
supporter of the policy, in general, of the Indian National Congress, and an
enthusiast of the broad ideals which it stood for. He lived to see the dawn of
a free India and the exit of British Imperialism.
In private life, Sri Sitarama Rao was a genial
friend, a pleasant conversationalist, a benefactor to charities, and supporter
of all worthy causes. Beneath his Victorian exterior and somewhat austere
demeanour, he concealed a warm heart, which quickly responded. In his quiet
home in Mylapore, he drew around him a host of friends–amateur and
professional, young and old, rich and poor, where they could hang up their hats
with no distinction of caste, creed, or affluence. To all he gave his time, and
to everyone his smile. As a profound scholar in Sanskrit, a master in Kannada,
and a keen student of English literature, he made a lively contribution and
could fill in the gaps at such gatherings.
Early in January 1947, he fell ill with a serious
attack of high blood pressure. But he rallied and was able to attend Court in
March. Almost his last performance in the High Court was to argue a first
Appeal from North Malabar early in April, which involved an intricate question
of Hindu Law. He did it with his usual ability and thoroughness, though the
fortune of the appeal went against him in the end. But those of us who were
actively associated with him in that brief, could easily perceive that physical
infirmities had set in him, and that his professional days were over. The end
of his long innings was at hand, and in the week that followed, he had a
relapse of his old illness, but he pulled through, and attended Court during
the last days of the term. When on April 28, 1947, Sri Sitarama Rao left Madras
for Buntwal, he was an old sick man. But none of us who had gathered that
evening on the station-platform to speed him home had the faintest thought that
he was leaving the City for good, under the shadow of death. As we bade him
farewell, it was, we felt, only an Au Revoir. It was expected that the
peace of his village and rest in his native home, would restore him to normal
health, if not enable him to resume active practice after the summer recess, at
least see him rest on his oars for some years to come. But that was not to be,
for there was a decree of Providence against it. Sitarama Rao died full of
years and honour.
“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, That Nature might stand up
And say to all the world–this was a MAN.”