“Sage counsel”

Died: Jehangir Rustam Gagrat, 73, noted solicitor, of a massive cardiac attack in Bombay on April 5, 2006.

"A solicitor’s firm was meant to be a one-stop filling station. It was not just about filling petrol. You got all the services at one place. The man who epitomized this approach — Jangoo Gagrat — is no more and a chapter in the history of the contribution of solicitors to Mumbai has been closed,” noted solicitor general of India Goolam Vahanvati in his tribute in Mid Day (April 8, 2006).

"He joined the firm — Gagrat and Company founded by his late father Rustamji over 75 years ago — in 1954 and soon distinguished himself in cases in constitutional law which was in its infancy with the advent of the Constitution in 1950. He specialized in cases relating to requisition of premises, evacuee property, customs and excise…Later, he took easily to corporate law practice and was director and advisor to several leading companies in Bombay,” writes former solicitor general of India and advocate general of Maharashtra Tehmtan Andh­ya­rujina.

Gagrat "understood the needs of the poor”

The kindly, affable, soft-spoken Jangoo as he was generally known, had a legion of admirers. While high-flying business magnates like Srichand Hinduja bemoan the loss of his "sage counsel” and describe him as a "rare combination of legal brilliance, ethical and moral values and strong common sense,” to lyricist Javed Akhtar "Gagrat Saheb was a thorough gentleman with a razor sharp mind, which he combined with high principles and deep compassion.” Supreme Court senior advocate Ashok Desai, who knew Jangoo since their years in Bombay’s Government Law College more than 50 years ago as much as during his legal internship at Gagrat and Company, notes his "enviable reputation of being thorough and upright” and his great efforts in a whole range of new legal fields including foreign exchange litigation.

Referring to the late solicitor as "mentor, guide and friend” over a period of 25 years, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal notes, "I do not know of any other legal professional who could explain a complex problem and its resolution, so clearly, so logically, and so convincingly and in a way that any layman could understand.” Ajit Kerkar, former chairman and managing director of the Taj Group of Hotels, nostalgically recalls their long association and the benefits reaped from Gagrat’s immense versatility and incisive clarity. These declarations bear out Vahanvati’s statement: "The entire corporate world ran after him. There was a time when you could not get an appointment with Jangoo Gagrat for almost three months, but people waited because they knew that ultimately he would bring unique value to the case.” According to Goyal, Gagrat guided them from the day they thought of setting up the Airline: "His guidance and advice was not restricted to the legal and regulatory aspects of the project, but also to all (its) commercial, regulatory and financial aspects.”

Alumnus of the New High School and St Xavier’s College, the son of the late Rustam and Mani Gagrat had qualified as a solicitor in the Bombay High Court as well as the Supreme Court of England and Wales, was advocate of the Supreme Court of India and notary of the Union of India. Principal partner of Gagrat and Company in Bombay and Delhi, Jangoo was the first Indian to set up an international law firm in England in 1980, notes Swati Deshpande in The Times of India (April 7, 2006). The Times obituary also credits him with setting up the M. C. Chagla Memorial Trust. He was a director of the Industrial Development Bank of India during the 1990s and a member of the Indian advisory board of the Hongkong Bank, notes a bio sketch provided by the family. Jet Airways, Hindustan Thompson, NOCIL, Kirloskar Brothers, Britannia Industries, Mafatlal Industries, Phil Corporation, The Indus-Ind Bank and the Cricket Club of India also counted Gagrat among their directors.

A trustee of several public and private trusts like the Volkart Foundation, the Chagla Trust and the Karl and Meherbai Khandalawala Collection of Indian Art Trust, the condolence resolution of the P. E. Polson Charity Trust where he had been joint chairman for the past 19 years, notes, "His compassionate nature made him an excellent trustee who understood the needs of the poor and ailing.”

From 1995 to 2002 Gagrat was a member of the committee constituted to review the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 1994. He served the Bombay Incorporated Law Society as member of its executive committee for over 30 years, and later as president when the Society celebrated its centenary in 1994. A decade thereafter the Society felicitated Gagrat on his completing 50 years in practice as a solicitor in Bombay. He also served as secretary of the International Law Association (Bombay Center), as a member of the Rules Committee of the Bombay High Court and was the chairman of the Indirect Taxation Committee of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber.

Despite all these onerous tasks, Gagrat had the enthusiasm to enjoy cricket, reading and jazz.

The Times write-up states that when the publication had spoken to Gagrat a little over a year ago "about the firm that he had nurtured and which was something of a legal landmark on Nagindas Master Road, he said, ‘I have been associated with the firm for 50 years and am reconstituting it, modernizing it, strengthening it with younger talent and want to give clients better service.’ His zest as the rainmaker was clearly still going strong.” In place of the old Gagrat and Company, there is now the restructured firm, Gagrats, Advocates, Solicitors and Notaries.

It is Vahanvati who notes, "Jangoo was an extraordinary human being. He invested in people, gave his affection to them. Mostly, he was not disappointed. Sometimes he was. He tried to take it in his stride. Sometimes he could not and this broke his heart.”

Gagrat is survived by his wife Maneck, son Rustam and daughter Farida Udwadia.

"The heights of the legal profession are captured by counsel who are in the public eye by their forensic achievements in the courts. No credit is given to the solicitor who works silently and unobtrusively in the preparation of the case and instructs the counsel in the case. But Chief Justice M. C. Chagla on his retirement rightly paid a tribute to the solicitors of the Bombay High Court who he said had contributed as much to the high standards of the legal profession in Bombay as counsel. Jehangir Gagrat must surely be the type of the solicitor which Chagla had in mind…

"Temperamentally, he was the most affable of all solicitors to whom his clients and friends in the profession took an immediate liking. Scores of young struggling lawyers were encouraged by him in the profession by his briefs sent to them. He was always quick to spot talent in young lawyers. Many lawyers who have made names for themselves in the profession today gratefully acknowledge his help in their junior days. His peers in the solicitors’ profession acknowledged his eminence…

"He rendered significant help in the cause of freedom of speech and independence of the judiciary. When during the emergency in 1976 the police banned the holding of a meeting to be addressed by Chagla and Justice Nathwani, Jangoo courageously filed a petition in the Bombay High Court in which over a hundred lawyers appeared to challenge the ban. The ban was struck down by a bench of Chief Justice Kantawala and Justice Tulzapurkar. In 1982 he spearheaded a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the law minister’s circular transferring a judge from one High Court to another. The petition became a leading judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of appointments and transfers of High Court judges (S. P. Gupta vs Union of India).”

Tehmtan Andhyarujina