The Pitamaha of the Indian Bar: A Living Institution Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
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The Pitamaha of the Indian Bar: A Living Institution
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
Oct 17, 2025
2
Published in Current Tamil Nadu Cases- a popular law journal- in its 2025 (5) CTC Edition dt. 15.10.2025
On 9 October 2025, the nation’s legal conscience pauses in reverence to Keshava Ayyangar Parasaran — a man who turns ninety-eight while completing seventy-five years at the Bar and fifty as a designated Senior Advocate. His life is intertwined with the evolution of India’s constitutional journey; he has not merely witnessed the Republic’s seventy-five years — he has helped shape its meaning through intellect, faith, and moral grace.
He began his practice in the Madras High Court, rose to the Supreme Court, and adorned the highest legal office as Attorney General of India. To trace his appearances would be to traverse the very history of post-Independence jurisprudence. Yet among the many causes he illumined, his appearance for Ram Lalla Virajman in the Ram Janmabhoomi case stands apart — not as victory alone, but as vindication of devotion and discipline. There he stood barefoot before the Bench, his presence austere and luminous, pleading with the serenity of belief rather than the fervour of advocacy. That he secured a unanimous verdict, and, more profoundly, a nation’s tranquil acceptance of it, remains a monument to persuasion elevated into statesmanship.
K. Parasaran belongs to that rare lineage of advocates for whom law was never mere livelihood but sacred duty. His erudition is vast, yet it is the moral clarity behind it that lends his words their force. Each argument is a symphony of scripture and statute, of dharma and discipline, of logic and light. When he speaks, courtrooms rediscover their sanctity — and the law, its lyricism.
He has long been hailed as the Pitamaha of the Indian Bar — not merely for his seniority, but for his stillness, scholarship, and spiritual poise. His advocacy is meditation in motion, his reasoning the quiet hum of conviction. In an age when rhetoric often eclipses reason, he reminds us that dignity is the true currency of persuasion.
Few lives so seamlessly unite intellect with integrity. The Constitution may have had many interpreters, but in Parasaran it found its custodian and conscience. He bridges eras and ideals, embodying a tradition where learning and humility coexist, and where duty to the Court is indistinguishable from duty to the soul.
As he completes these rare and resplendent milestones, it is not merely the Bar but the Judiciary itself that salutes him — a jurist who ennobles every institution he touches, and whose life stands as the living scripture of professional virtue. The legal fraternity and the constitutional courts together honour this sage of the courtroom, whose presence has been both benediction and beacon.
(Published in commemoration of Shri K. Parasaran’s 98th birthday — 9 October 2025)
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