Javali Left A Rich Legacy

Javali came from an illustrious and educated agrarian family in the Bombay Karnataka region of Karnataka State. He was the son of an articulate lawyer, SC Javali. He carried the maternal lineage from the family of Dr. D. C. Pavate, who was the Governor of Punjab and a foremost educationist in independent India.

After initial schooling at the KE Board in Dharwad, Javali stepped into the boarding school, Mayo College, Ajmer, known as Eton of the East. Inheriting the Mayo heritage, he married Shalini, daughter of Raja Punganur in Andhra Pradesh. The couple has a daughter, Anupama, settled in the US, and a son, Kirit, who is a Barrister and practicing lawyer in Delhi.

For distant Karnataka lawyers from the south, trekking up to New Delhi to practice in the Supreme Court was an adventurous exercise before 1980. Despite all settled life in Bangalore with a bungalow in salubrious Cunningham Road, Javali leaped into Delhi to begin life in a modest apartment. He was a first-generation legal eagle coming from Karnataka to the Supreme Court Bar; others included legendary B.R.L. Iyenger, indomitable M. Veerappa and sharp-witted KN Bhat. He used to narrate how Chief Justice Hombe Gowda of the High Court in 1965 when he visited his house to see how well he had settled in Delhi, the car broke down on the road and the Chief Justice had to push to start his old modelled car!

When elite tag mattered in the legal profession, Javali strenuously devilled in the Chambers of SV Gupte (then Solicitor General and later later Attorney General of India) getting exposure in sensitive constitutional matters beginning from historic Presidential Reference against the decision of Uttar Pradesh Speaker Keshav Kumar to summon judges of Allahabad High Court for breach of privilege. With such strong training in the chambers of Gupte, Javali soon established his independent practice. The law reports are replete with cases in which he briefed legal stalwarts of the bygone era, M.C. Setalwad, M.C. Chagla, Asoke Sen, Vishwanath Sastry, etc. Javali took silk in 1989 when the full court of the Supreme Court designated him as Senior Advocate for his standing at the Bar.

Javali's tryst with inter-state water disputes is a part of a chapter in Karnataka's irrigation history. He started his long innings of five decades with Krishna when the then Advocate General of Karnataka, V.S. Malimath, persuaded him to appear for Karnataka before the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (1969-1976) headed by Justice R.S. Bachawat. Though paid well, for a lawyer, investing time and cracking his head on a complex technical matter with political overtones was not an easy choice. The association naturally continued, continuing in the legal team in Cauvery (1983 - 2018), Almatti Dam Dispute (1996-2000), Krishna Surplus water (2004 to 2018), Mahadayi (2013 - 2018), and Cauvery Surplus Water (2018 onwards). He did stellar work as part of a legal team headed by Sachin Choudhary (1973-77) Fali Nariman (1983-2018), and Anil Divan (1993-2017), in securing an equitable share for Karnataka to irrigate millions of acres of drought-affected lands. Among colleagues, he is often mentioned as a Kalaji Lawyer (caring lawyer) for his sense of concern towards the cause and his no-nonsense approach in instilling seriousness by doses of timely advice to apparatchiks in Government. Beneath his quietness, he was a strategist par excellence in litigation. When I told him that drafting the historic Ordinance overriding the interim order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in 1991 is likely to be construed as legislative disobedience, he said inter-state litigations are like a Mahabharat. He meant, something good may come out of a constitutional battle even in defeat. He was not off the rails. The opinion of the Constitution bench, while striking down the belligerent Ordinance, clarified the constitutional position of inter-state water based on equality of States. The opinion mitigated the rigours of colonial agreements between the unequal Maharaja of Mysore and the British powered Madras.

Grok AI rightly says – “Beyond his courtroom achievements, Javali maintains a deep connection with Cambridge University, where he has fostered a relationship spanning over 30 years. In 2024, he was honored as a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge, a rare distinction. He is the grand-nephew of D.C. Pavate, a Cambridge alumnus and former Governor of Punjab. To honor his uncle's legacy, Javali established the Pavate Foundation, which supports initiatives like a moot court competition and an exchange program in collaboration with Cambridge University.” He served with distinction as Secretary of Karnataka School in Delhi in the mid-1980s.

Javali took a keen interest close to three decades in organising National Moot Competition at University Law College, Dharwad, and introduced legal luminaries to Dharwad, which eventually many say contributed to formation of the High Court bench. On establishing the bench, he generously contributed to setting up a Research Centre for the High Court Bar.

Describing Javali, legal luminary Barry Sen, in his autobiography (Six Decades of Law, Politics, & Diplomacy), truly says that Javali is a lawyer with the values of an old timer. No doubt, Javali was an extremely well-mannered person. His style of conversing was tampered with phrases like a Victorian gentleman. Sometimes, his words were bordering on sarcasm and embarrassment! But his humbleness was a natural corrector. We often had heated arguments and sometimes locked horns in our long innings in the legal team of Karnataka in inter-State water disputes, but it was he who mollified me, despite he was of fatherly age.

Our families have known each other for two generations. Taking advantage of familiarity, I ventured to seek Javali's guidance when I decided to practice in the Supreme Court straight after taking a law degree in the mid-1980s. Javali immediately quipped, “Everyone wants to catch a fast-moving duck"! He was not off the mark in warning a rookie in the profession who is going to defend the aggrieved within the framework of equity and justice. A law graduate practicing in the Supreme Court without work experience in conveyancing, trials, and High Court litigation is a big challenge, though not insurmountable.

Javali is no more with us. If, “legacy is not what I did for myself. It's what I'm doing for the next generation” as Victor Belfort said, Javali has left legacy for next generation of Bar members.

The author is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India (mohankatarki@gmail.com).