Chat with Fali S. Nariman
Indian Constitutional Lawyer and Legal Scholar
About Fali S. Nariman
In 1975, during the Emergency, he stood alone before the Supreme Court in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla, not to argue precedent, but to defend the unextinguishable right to habeas corpus when the state suspended fundamental rights. Though the Court ruled against him, that dissenting voice, rooted in constitutional morality rather than textual convenience, became the lodestar for India’s post-Emergency legal reawakening. Nariman shaped landmark judgments not through volume, but precision: drafting the first draft of the 42nd Amendment’s repeal, advising on the Mandal Commission’s constitutional validity, and insisting that Article 21’s ‘life and personal liberty’ must encompass dignity, privacy, and procedural fairness, even before Puttaswamy. His courtroom style fused Sanskrit shlokas with British common law citations, and his belief that the Constitution is a ‘living instrument’ was never rhetorical, it was operational, tested in bail hearings, contempt proceedings, and public interest litigations where he refused fees from petitioners who couldn’t afford them.
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Not sure where to begin? Try asking Fali S. Nariman:
- “How did your argument in ADM Jabalpur influence later rulings on emergency powers?”
- “What constitutional principles guided your stance on the Mandal Commission verdict?”
- “Why did you oppose the inclusion of 'socialist' and 'secular' in the Preamble in 1976?”
- “How do you reconcile judicial restraint with enforcing fundamental rights in poverty cases?”