Monday, April 13, 2009

Tribute to Advocate Vasudevan




This is a write up about my father K.Vasudevan, an outstanding legal practitioner.This is an entry in the history of Trichy diary ,published in a newspaper in April 2009.I take great pride in translating this into English and I take this opportunity of paying a tribute to him in my blog.
I sincerely thank advocate Chandrasekara Vellayan for all his support.I thank R.Vijayaraghavan and V.Rangarajan for their constructive criticism and for helping me with relevant phrases that facilitated an exact translation.I also thank my brother-in-law T.Sridharan for scanning the image .
My tribute to K.Vasudevan -- a great father and a wonderful human being.


. This is an exact translation of what was published in the newspaper, in Trichy, Tamil Nadu in 2009.My heart swells with pride and gratitude to have been able to do this.


Tiruchirapalli
History of Trichy --Diary Entry of today.
Advocate Vasudevan

In today’s diary entry of Trichy, we shall read about K.Vasudevan [1924-1998], an outstanding lawyer. Vasudevan was the eldest son of N.V.Krishnaswamy Iyengar and Kanakavalli Ammal.He was born in Kumbakonam on 12/11/1924.His father, N.V.Krishnaswamy Iyengar was a successful lawyer practising civil law in Ariyalur. Even as a very young boy Vasudevan exhibited his father’s sharp intellect and quick grasp. After his primary and secondary education at Ariyalur, he finished his intermediate course in Annamalai University.Later, he pursued his higher education in Law and enrolling himself as a junior to his father skillfully picked up legal training. Being surprised at his son’s extraordinary brilliance, N.V.K.Iyengar sent him to Trichy. Starting his legal practice at Trichy, Vasudevan proved his mettle by taking up a great number of difficult legal cases and with his brilliant reasoning, emerged triumphant. Though he took up a majority of civil cases, he also argued periodically in some criminal cases. .Recognizing his skill in the legal profession, the government appointed him as Government Pleader. After his tenure as Government Pleader in Trichy District court for four years, he resumed his private practice.
He was a person who would never demand his fees voluntarily from his clients. He would also not persist against the opponent when his case was a weak one. Moreover, he would never divert or mislead a case lest the judge should give an unjust verdict. This had made judges openly extol his magnanimity and professional integrity. Moreover, as he was well versed in the nuances of law, judges sought his expert advice and referred to him for former case studies. He had a phenomenal memory and could recall very old cases argued many years ago and could quote all relevant data, regarding case studies, verdicts and even respective sections of Law pertaining to those cases.
He was a great mentor to his junior lawyers and played a big part in guiding them. He would delegate cases to his juniors and give constructive criticisms about their merits and demerits and encourage them. Currently practising, popular lawyers John Louis, Pasupathy, Gurumurthy, MuthuVenkataseshan and Vellayan are some of his juniors. This outstanding lawyer passed away on February 27th 1998.His wife is V.Saroja and he has two daughters Malathy Sridharan and KalaVijayaraghavan. His brother K.Padmanabhan, a resident of Trichy, is a retired Chairman of Ordnance Factory.