Ban it or not, one thing that must be conceded to Jaswant Singh’s book Jinnah: India-Partition Independence is that it has brought into focus the role of two of the most influential leaders of their time, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Although the two were probably at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, there was a time when Jinnah in his capacity as an advocate in the Bombay High Court had successfully defended Sardar and 18 others in a suit filed by the then British government.

The details of the incident have been revealed in a book titled Sardar Patel – Ek Sinh Purush, authored by Rizwan Kadri, an Ahmedabad-based historian of the Department of History, Swaminarayan Arts College.

Kadri said: “The issue dates back to April 28, 1922, when a case was registered in the Ahmedabad District Court (ADC) against Sardar and 18 councillors of the Ahmedabad Municipality for ‘misapplication of funds’ and the British government sought to recover Rs 1,68,600 from them.”

He added that after Sardar successfully defended the case in the ADC, the government moved the Bombay High Court in 1923. “Manilal Harivallavdas Bhagat was one of the respondents along with Sardar in the case ‘The Secretary of State for India vs Manilal Harivallavdas Bhagat and others’,” Kadri said.

Jinnah, he added, was the team leader of the lawyers that included H V Divatia, G N Thakor, A G Desai and N P Desai, who fought the case for Sardar in the HC. The HC passed an order in 1925 in favour of Sardar and others, setting aside all the charges levelled by the government.

... contd.