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Devil's advocate Jethmalani doesn't mince words

He maybe a nonagenarian but that's done little to dent lawyer-politician Ram Jethmalani's propensity at not mincing words. In full flow he had the 2000 plus audience at the ZeeJLF venue eating out of his hand as he lashed out at the everyone from veteran BJP leader L K Advani to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

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He maybe a nonagenarian but that's done little to dent lawyer-politician Ram Jethmalani's propensity at not mincing words. In full flow he had the 2000 plus audience at the ZeeJLF venue eating out of his hand as he lashed out at the everyone from veteran BJP leader L K Advani to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

In conversation with author Shobha De and journalist Madhu Trehan at a ZeeJLF session - The Devil's advocate: Ram Jethmalani, the senior lawyer seemed in mood to hold back his punches even as the audience lustily cheered and applauded.

Insisting, "Modi needs to sack Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley if he wants to succeed in recovering black money," the senior legal eagle said, ""I'm most disappointed as Modi has put men like Jaitley in charge of the work. He will never be able to complete it."

According to the veteran lawyer, "Jaitley is misleading by talking about bilateral double taxation avoidance treaties (DTAT) as the reason behind the inability to reveal the names of Indians who hold illegal foreign bank accounts."
He said he had written to PM Modi. "I said I'm living in the departure lounge of God's airport and I don't want anything from you but I wish you will fulfill all the promises you made to people of the country. But as far as the black money row is concerned I am most disappointed in him," he lamented.

Jethmalani said he had supprted Modi all through the election campaign only for two things. "One I wanted to see the previous government being thrown out. I'm very happy that we've succeeded with my efforts partially contributing to it. Second, I want to see black money being recovered."

Senior BJP leader LK Advani too wasn't spared. "L K Advani is the most ungrateful man because he is party to my expulsion from the part," he alleged and added with anger, "Around elections there were many hurdles inside the BJP. Everyone wanted to be PM and this led to intense rivalries. The only issue they were united on were that Ram has to be silenced and thrown out of the party." It will be recalled that Jethmalani was suspended from the BJP after he opposed a second term for Nitin Gadkari as BJP president.

He called the late PM Indira Gandhi's decision to impose the emergency "a folly committed on the advice of her foolish son Sanjay Gandhi." According to him, faced with the prospect of the multiple cases a "scared" Indira had asked Congress leader A R Antulay to organise a meeting with Jethmalani to find a way out. "I was taken to her bedroom where she asked me to help her out. I told her that I will help her only if she publicly accepts her mistakes and apologises to the nation, which she was unwilling to do."

While admitting, "Our society undoubtedly suffers from disease of corruption. I don't deny corruption has crept into judiciary too," he said, "Yet, I swear compared to other sectors of society judges are still angels," he said appreciating the role of the judiciary.

While he said he had no regrets about any of the cases he took up to fight, he broke into laughter when novelist-columnist De asked him the secret of why he left even young girls charmed.

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