A first-generation lawyer, Sanjeev Bansal (43) has had a meteoric rise since joining as an advocate in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In this time, he has made it to the Additional Advocate General’s position, developed close relations with Congress leaders, and got himself a long, impressive list of clientele.

As he comes under a cloud after he was booked for trying to bribe a judge of the High Court, Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, colleagues confess the allegations don’t surprise them.

Enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana in 1992, Bansal is the son of a retired chief engineer from Punjab. He started out as a junior to one of the seniormost advocates of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Rajiv Atma Ram, and surprisingly soon had a long list of rich clients. His first cases all dealt with service matters of government employees.

It was in Ram’s office that he would meet his future wife, Renu, who was also junior to the senior advocate. Incidentally, Renu also worked as a junior with Nirmaljit Kaur when she was practising as an advocate in the High Court before her elevation as a judge.

Bansal started his independent practice in 1992 and from service matters, slowly graduated to a variety of cases. His client list sported names of big industrialists, politicians and VIPs. He mostly dealt in civil disputes, and did not have much practice in the field of criminal litigation.

His client list also prominently included religious leaders from various parts of Haryana. There was hardly a high-profile case pertaining to a mahant, be it a murder case or bail application, that was not contested by Bansal.

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