This
is a story involving an extra-marital affair that resulted in a murder. The
trial of the murderer generated unprecedented media coverage and the
circumstances in which the murder took place resulted in huge public sympathy
for him. This is also one of the first cases through which the maverick lawyer,
Mr. Ram Jethmalani, came into the limelight for the first time.
Nanavati
was enraged, but he did not show it. He dropped Sylvia and their two children
to a nearby cinema hall, proceeded to the Naval Docks from where he withdrew
his pistol and six cartridges on an excuse, finished his shift and went to
Ahuja’s office. He did not find him there. He proceeded to Ahuja’s flat and
confronted him there asking whether he would marry Sylvia and take in his
children.
He
refused.
Nanavati
shot him dead.
After
committing the murder, he proceeded to the Provost Marshal of the Western Naval
Command, where he confessed to his crime. The Provost Marshal asked him to
surrender before the Deputy Commissioner of Police, which he did. Nanavati was
an upright, moral and patriotic officer who did not have any prior history of
criminal activity. The jury that heard his trial was sympathetic to his
suffering and declared him to ‘not guilty’ by a majority of 8-1.
Ram
Jethmalani, a young lawyer at the time, was assisting the prosecution on the
request of Ahuja’s sister Mamie Ahuja. The trial court judge found this verdict
to be perverse and referred the matter to the High Court.
Throughout
the trial, the Bombay Daily Blitz, which folded shop in the 90s, championed the
cause of Nanavati. One copy of the magazine, which was usually priced at 25
paisa, was selling at 2 rupees per issue at the height of the trial. The
coverage of the trial pitted the Parsi and Sindhi communities in the city
against each other. When the matter reached the High Court, a sentence of life
imprisonment was read out, upon which Nanavati preferred an appeal to the
Supreme Court.
The
Supreme Court confirmed the verdict of the High Court in November 1961. Blitz
now went into an overdrive. It published a mercy petition in its pages,
forcefully conveying the sentiments of the Parsi community which was wholly in
favor of pardoning him. The rule of law and the demands of the society had
clashed with each other. It was obvious that one had to bend in favor of the
other.
Around
the same time, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, newly appointed Governor of Bombay and
sister of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, received a mercy petition from Bhai
Pratap, a prominent Sindhi leader, in March 1962. Bhai Pratap had a business of
import-export of sport goods and bureaucrats around her agreed that he could be
pardoned. Pandit pounced on the chance. Bhai Pratap could be pardoned, she
reasoned, after Nanavati had been pardoned. This way, both the Parsi and the
Sindhi communities would get what they want. The proposal was conveyed to
Jethmalani, who was asked to convince Mamie Ahuja for the same. She acceded to
the government’s request.
Soon
after being pardoned by the government, Nanavati left for Canada along with his
wife and two children and was never heard of again. He died in 2003. Sylvia is
still alive.
The
case has inspired several Bollywood movies, plays and books including R K
Nayar’s Ye Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke (1963) starring Sunil Dutt and Leela
Naidu, Gulzar’sAchanak (1973) starring Vinod Khanna and Lily
Chakraborty and Indra Sinha’s bookThe Death of Mr Love (2002). And now, Akshay Kumar and
Neeraj Pandey’s latest offing Rustom,
is based on the case.
Even
after 50 years, the Nanavati case continues to have a tremendous recall value
among a public infamous for its short memory. The question that animated discussions
in countless chai shops of Bombay at the time of the trial remains relevant
till today - “What would you have done if you were in his shoes?”
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