My Mother — Page 73
Dreams and Portents 73 to Delhi and resumed my duties as Senior Crown Counsel in the Conspiracy Case. Thereafter, whenever Mother had occasion to pass through Jalandhar in the course of a journey, she offered two rak‘ahs of prayer in remembrance of my life having been spared by Divine mercy. When the Tribunal adjourned for the Easter weekend, I went to Lahore to be with Mother. There I received a message that Sir Fazal-i-Husain desired me to see him in Simla on my way back to Delhi. On arrival in Simla, I found that he was sick in bed. I was shown into his room and he told me that his health, which had for some years been indifferent, had deteriorated further so that he was compelled to ask for leave for four months and had recommended to the Governor-General (Lord Willingdon) that I should offici- ate for him during his absence. The Governor-General had agreed. This meant that I should resign from my office of Crown Counsel in the Conspiracy Case. The accused in the case were a bunch of young terrorists well educated, who had been assigned counsel of their choice for their defence at Government expense, and had been up to all kinds of tricks and had recourse to every device they could think of to obstruct the trial and frustrate the prosecution. At the end of the last day of my appearance before the Tribunal, the President and defence counsel made the customary valedic- tory observations, and two of the accused indicated that they also wished to say something. I was apprehensive that their remarks were not likely to be complimentary and might prove embarrass- ing for me. I was, however, very agreeably surprised. The substance of what they said was: ‘We associate ourselves with what our counsel has said. We are no judges of the Crown Counsel’s legal qualifications and ability, but we wish to acknowledge that he has