V Anbalagan

January 15, 2022

KUALA LUMPUR: When Mahadev Shankar arrived in Seremban in 1956 to manage the branch of a reputable legal firm, he was the most junior counsel among the 13 in town.

His first case was a murder trial that was assigned to him after all the other 12 lawyers refused the brief because they were convinced the accused would be convicted and hanged.

"I was called in to see the court registrar, Joo Peng Lin, who was a delightful pipe smoker. He told me, 'Look, I want you to take on this case,' " said Shankar in his book, Summum Bonum (The Ultimate Good).

The 90-year-old retired Court of Appeal judge said he explained that he had just arrived in Seremban and asked for more time to consider whether to take on the case.

He made inquiries from other lawyers, Edgar Joseph (who retired as a Federal Court judge) and H W Tan. Both advised him against taking it as they had seen the brief.

Shankar recalled Joo as saying: "If you don't take this case, you are going to shame me because I will have to send this file back to Kuala Lumpur. The fact that the lawyers in Seremban won't take this case will be a bad reflection on me."

Shankar finally agreed to take on the case.

The case concerned a barber in Bahau, an Indian national, who had killed his sister-in-law while the brother was in India.

Retired Court of Appeal judge Mahadev Shankar signing a poster
advertising his new book. With him is Santhi Latha.

According to the accused, the victim, Ammani, was being courted by a young barber at the shop and he had advised her against getting involved with the man.

She called the accused a leper and that he was undesirable to any woman. This triggered his rage, leading him to grab a kitchen knife and stab her once.

Shankar relied on the defence of provocation because of the statement made by the woman about the accused's skin condition.

He submitted a mountain of case laws on provocation. Following a hint by the trial judge, who was assisted by two lay assessors, he focused on the facts of the case and sat down.

In the end, the accused was acquitted of murder but convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to seven years in jail.

"When I look back at that case, I do not consider it a loss. Far from it, this case impacted positively on my reputation as a lawyer," he said.

Shankar was also the lawyer who in 1975 appeared in the widely followed body-in-trunk case where Colombo Plan expert Kingsley John Lewis was charged with the murder of Maria Theresa, said to be a philandering and abusive wife.

The cover of the book.

Lewis was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced to three years jail.

In his book, Shankar also said Edgar Joseph, who himself was a formidable defence lawyer before his elevation to the Bench, had advised him that judges were more concerned about facts and not blazing new trails in legal knowledge.

Recalling his three-year stint in Seremban, Shankar, who had served as a member of two Royal Commissions of Inquiry and the Human Rights Commission, said he recognised it as forming the foundation of his career.

Lawyer Santhi Latha had been collating and editing the 408-page book since 2013 after listening to and putting Shankar's thoughts and views in writing due to his failing eyesight.

The book, now available at major bookstores, presents Shankar's life, experiences and reflections in the form of stories that are absorbing, some even tantalising, as readers travel with the author from early Malaya until his elevation as a judge and after retirement.

Former Federal Court judge Zainun Ali launched the book on Saturday. It is published by Sweet & Maxwell.

V Anbalagan

January 17, 2022

Mahadev Shankar had recruited several pupils, including some notables, to be under his wing as the volume of work coming his way in a legal firm here was unceasing.

However, one escaped his radar for he did not do a thorough background check. He is none other than Ong Boo Kok, the son of then Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) secretary-general Chin Peng, also known as Ong Boon Hua.

"My discovery of who he really was came about in a surprising way," said the 90-year Shankar in his book, Summum Bonum (The Ultimate Good).

He said he had to appear before Justice S S Gill on a Monday morning, but had another matter before Justice H T Ong.

He briefed Boo Kok to hold fort for him in Gill's court while he finished his matter before Ong.

"To my horror, Boo Kok failed to appear in Gill's court, and I was forced to beg Gill to hold over my matter until I had finished my business in the other court.

"My excuse that my assistant had not shown up was a lame one and I was lucky to get away with it," he said, adding that he returned to the office determined to give Boo Kok the sack.

However, Shankar said, the office could not find him.

The following morning, the firm's chief clerk, Chin Kong Sieu, turned up in Shankar's room with a Chinese newspaper where on the front page, under the banner headline, was a big photograph of Boo Kok.

"Chin Peng's son discovered as a lawyer in Shearn Delamore & Co," screamed the headline.

Shankar, who had also served as a judge for 14 years until his retirement in 1997, said Chin told him that all attempts to locate Boo Kok had failed - Chin Peng's son had disappeared.

"I could not even serve notice of dismissal on him," said Shankar, who was called to the Bar in 1956 and was now the second most senior lawyer on the rolls.

A month later, a handwritten letter from Boo Kok arrived in the post and he extended his profuse apologies and revealed that he decided to disappear when he found a group of press photographers waiting in ambush at the office that Monday morning, all waiting to get him.

"He ran away to save me the embarrassment of being publicly exposed as the employer of the son of Malaysia's leading communist and our nation's public enemy number one," he said.

Shankar said as the pupil master, perhaps he should have been more careful.

"Had I known he was Chin Peng's son, I do not think he would have had any prospect whatsoever of joining the firm," he said.

However, in retrospect, he found Boo Kok to be a person of impeccable character and responsibility in the manner he fulfilled his duties.

"I never saw him again," he said.

(The legal directory revealed that Boo Kok is still in practice and running his own firm in the city.)

In his book, Shankar said Bok Kok read law at the University of Singapore where he had also gained a powerful reputation for being able to drink vast quantities of beer within a short time.

He said Boo Kok had won bets against the British army personnel who frequented the bar at the Cathay Cinema in Singapore.

Despite his diminutive size, Boo Kok's reputation was such that none of them would dare take him on, he said.

"This insatiable capacity was a plus point when he joined our firm because he was the only one who could keep S Woodhull (another prominent Singapore lawyer and politician) in check," he said.

Shankar also revealed that among the others he was instrumental in bringing into the firm were V L Kandan, Cecil Abraham, Ronald Khoo and Woodhull, all of whom subsequently became partners.

He said some others rose to fame, including Daim Zainuddin, who became a businessman and later the finance minister.

Lawyer Santhi Latha had been collating and editing the 408-page book since 2013 after listening and putting Shankar's thoughts and views in writing due to his failing eyesight.

V Anbalagan

January 22, 2022

One morning in 1960, a man with a towel around his prominently large bald head
was stopped by two constables on bicycles at the Seremban Lake Gardens
and locked up. He turned out to be the High Court judge.

Have you heard of a judge who ended in a police lock-up? It happened in Seremban in 1960, and the judge involved was the late Justice N Sharma.

Sharma was the High Court judge for Negeri Sembilan and Melaka at the time, based in Melaka as Seremban did not have judges' quarters.

He would travel from Melaka on a Sunday and take a room at the Seremban Rest House adjoining the Lake Gardens.

An insomniac, Sharma decided to go for a walk one Monday morning at about 4.30. "Because it was so early and hardly a soul was stirring," Sharma decided that he would not change his clothes for the morning stroll.

He was already wearing a round neck singlet, a pair of shorts and canvas shoes. As it was chilly, he wrapped a towel around his head, which Shankar described as being prominently large and bald. He took a walking stick (presumably to ward off any dogs) and off he went, striding along the road to the Lake Gardens.

On the way, he was stopped by two constables on bicycles, who demanded that he show his identity card. "He became annoyed and they refused to accept that he was a judge. He yelled, 'You siapa?' (Who do you think you are)," Shankar wrote.

Sharma tried to explain that he was a judge but the policemen were not convinced, and that made him angry and he called them "bodoh" (stupid). "By this time the constables were convinced that he was demented, and since he was not carrying any document, they took him to the police station and locked him up," said Shankar.

At 8 am, Stanley Ponniah, a lawyer in the town, went to the police station to bail out one of his clients and while he was at the counter, Sharma, who was in his cell, saw him and yelled for help.

Ponniah asked the judge: "What are you doing in the lock-up?" An exasperated Sharma replied: "Tell these bloody fools that I am the judge and get me out of here."

Ponniah told one of the constables that Sharma was a judge and procured his release from the cell. The constable who had detained Sharma apologised profusely and saluted him.

Sharma asked Ponniah to take him back to the Rest House immediately and told Ponniah to keep the matter under his hat, "but by the time I got to my office in Kuala Lumpur at 9.15am that same morning, despite there not being mobile phones and social media, the story had gone viral!"

Sharma, a lawyer from Ipoh wrote some landmark judgements in civil and criminal law.

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A page from the chapter covering Shankar's V.I. days