The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 170
154 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN over and read through the draft. I was submitting a case on behalf of the Muslim League and somebody on behalf of the League had to give me instructions! I dared not submit a case which might afterwards be repudiated. Sirdar Shaukat Hayat Khan could not come; he had high fever. But Mr. Mian Mumtaz Daultana very kindly came along. He said it was not necessary for him to read the draft that had been prepared as they had all full confidence in me, but I told him that this was not a matter of confidence but a matter of instructions and that I must have somebody's instructions. I insisted that he should read right through the draft and put his imprimatur on it. So, he very kindly read through the draft, praised it very highly and said he agreed entirely with it. The next morning I put the final touches on it, and by noon we were able to deliver the document to the Commission. Immediately thereafter I went on to the Friday service at the mosque, where I was asked to take the service, and I earnestly urged the congregation that they should be very diligent in prayers that all should go right, as I was much afraid that over portions of the Punjab the Muslims would have to face the days the Muslims in Spain had to face under Isabella and Ferdinand. Unfortunately, that apprehension proved to be only too well-founded. The following Monday arguments started before the Commission. The case was argued very well on all sides. The Hindu case was put by Mr. M. C. Setalvad, who is now the Attorney-General of India. He had been asked to come up from Bombay to do so. He was assisted by very able lawyers, among them Bakhshi Tek Chand, who was a retired judge of the Lahore High Court, and had been for many years the ablest lawyer at the Lahore bar. The Sikh case was put by a gentleman who later became the Advocate General in East Punjab. It is not necessary to go into detail about what was said, but the main contest centred around the Gurdaspur District, Ferozpur District and parts of the Jullundur District. The crux of the matter was how to interpret and apply the expression "contiguous Muslim majority areas and contiguous non-Muslim majority areas. " We rested our case on the tehsil, or sub-district being adopted as the unit for the purpose of determining contiguous majority areas. One could take the village as a unit, but that would mean the boundary line would be a completely crazy one. It would not be possible to determine