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Devil's Advocate: Ram Jethmalani
Published on Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 20:45, Updated on Mon, Nov 20, 2006 at 01:07 in India section
Tags: Devils Advocate, Karan Thapar , Karan Thapar
Karan Thapar: Is it another gimmick? Is it another trick? Is this how Ram Jethmalani attracts attention to himself?
Ram Jethmalani: I do not like this kind of impertinence of even Mr Karan Thapar, whoever he thinks he is.
Karan Thapar: What if there is truth behind the impertinence?
Ram Jethmalani: It doesn’t matter. You go and tell it to others.
Karan Thapar: What if I have touched a raw nerve in saying that you are deliberately spreading libel and innuendo?
Ram Jethmalani: You go on talking bullshit and continue that bullshit. I am totally impervious. Please think that I am not listening to you now.
Karan Thapar: Do you have a clear heart and a clean conscience?
Ram Jethmalani: I am sorry, I won’t answer this.
Karan Thapar: You won’t answer it? In other words, you won’t incriminate yourself.
Ram Jethmalani: I have a conscience which many people will be proud of and I am sure that you don’t possess even a fraction of that conscience.
Karan Thapar: Mr Jethmalani, is it your case that criminal advocacy entails casting aspersions on people’s characters, and it entails spreading doubt even though ordinary human beings would believe there is no room for doubt whatsoever?
Ram Jethmalani: Criminal advocacy does involve opening up people’s past to find out whether they are reliable, whether they have motivations to speak lies and whether their character is such that should inspire confidence.
Karan Thapar: Even with what I called lies. I called them lies and repeat the word again.
Ram Jethmalani: You are nobody to call them lies.
Karan Thapar: You know they are. You personally know the people you are maligning.
Ram Jethmalani: I wish journalists like you had been given some judicial powers, and fortunately for the society that is not so yet.
Karan Thapar: I am saying the opposite. I am saying that a lawyer of your upstanding character should have thrown up his hands and said enough is enough. I will defend the accused, but I will only do it in an honourable and acceptable way. I won’t libel.
Ram Jethmalani: Mr Karan Thapar, I am so sorry that you are so silly. I have not even appeared in the trial court. I am arguing the matter on record created by some other lawyer. You should know this. You should at least know what the role of an appellate lawyer is. I am arguing on a record, which has come to me in my hands. I have done nothing of that type. I am only reading the record.
Karan Thapar: But the point I am making is a simple one. There may be many things in papers that you have alleged have been published. You are using them as your defence, but do you have to fall so low to use every dirty trick. That’s the point I am making. Are there no principles that you uphold? The morality you observe.
Ram Jethmalani: I am sorry, Karan. You are taking advantage of my hospitality. You are in my house that’s why I don’t want to tell you that. You are falling to low of every kind of standard of morals of an anchor and a television interviewer. You are taking advantage of the fact that you are in my house and that you are my guest. Otherwise, I would throw out somebody here.
Karan Thapar: Maybe and that will be your prerogative. But I repeat my question again.
Ram Jethmalani: You can go on repeating. But I will not answer it any more. If you go on repeating, I will not answer.
Karan Thapar: Mr Ram Jethmalani, people believe that you were a champion of justice...
Ram Jethmalani: I am a champion of justice. But justice doesn’t mean what you think of justice, justice is what the judges think of it and what I think of it, not you.
Karan Thapar: Do you regret the collapse in your standing and you reputation in the eyes of the Indian people today?
Ram Jethmalani: You don't know, perhaps you know and you are hiding it or concealing it. You don’t want to acknowledge it that even on that day, on the television interview, they counted the people who supported me and 80 per cent of the people said that Mr Jethmalani is right in what he is doing.
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Too good Karan. I wish if we can have few good people like you in politics too.
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Karan wants that no one defends a convict whom he thinks is a criminal. For fair judgment both parties have
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both the gentlemen had their views and they were able to justify it. but what i feel is that a
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A brilliant interview done.My country needs bold intrviewers like karn thapar.As suttle journalisim is gulped by the powerfull like nothing
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Sorry to say Karan Saheb, that you seem to have no respect for anyone %26 totally gone berserk with some
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