Sri B. Sitarama Rao: An Appreciation

Sri B Sitarama Rao: An Appreciation

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.”