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Courtroom drama to lifetime honour: Rajiv Nayar, lawyer in Priya Sachdev case, felicitated
Hindu College honoured Rajiv Nayar with the Lifetime Achievement Award, while Vikram Misri and Imtiaz Ali received Special Awards for public service and cinema.
Well-known journalist and crusader Kuldip Nayar would surely be smiling from the heavens. So would his wife, Bharti. And why not? Their son Rajiv has done both of them proud.
Last week, Rajiv Nayar was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by Hindu College. His alma mater had honored him for his “exceptional achievements” along with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and well-known director Imtiaz Ali among others. Misri and Ali were conferred Special Awards for their “outstanding work” in Public Service and Cinema respectively.
Unlike his father, Rajiv did not take journalism as a profession. Instead, he settled for law: “I did think of following in my father's footsteps but it was the Emergency that changed everything. My father was jailed, my mother, though a strong woman, counted days, spending sleepless nights waiting for my father to be back home. That was when I decided that I should equip myself to fight for justice. I think the ability to weave a story in every case that I now fight in court, is a quality that I have inherited from my father: the way a good editor would structure a story and the ability and expertise to narrate it”. This is what Nayar has been doing for four decades now: fighting for justice and presenting every case convincingly and credibly. It is, therefore, not without reason that every client of his feels that Nayar “gave it his all”: in other words, the best shot.
Mentored by the late Arun Jaitley, who also served as India’s Finance Minister, Rajiv Nayar soon carved a niche for himself in commercial litigation in India.
Apart from the award, Nayar was recently in the news for fighting Priya Sachdev’s case in court.
For the record, Priya is fighting an inheritance battle in court regarding the ₹30,000 crore estate of her late husband, businessman Sunjay Kapur. Sunjay’s children, with his ex-wife and actress Karisma Kapoor, had filed a civil suit in the Delhi High Court accusing Priya of forging Sunjay’s will to exclude them from the inheritance. Nayar is representing Priya.
In court he was, as usual, at his fiery best when he asked senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani “not to interrupt” him: “I am not used to interruptions” Nayar had then told Jethmalani.
But that is Nayar: never to give in: “Few advocates light up a courtroom quite the way Rajiv Nayar does.. when he rises to speak…judges lean forward, juniors pull out their pens and litigants sense something decisive is about to happen” to quote a colleague.
But Sachdev’s case is not Nayar’s only claim to fame. There are other high-profile cases that Nayar has argued and fought. His range includes shareholder battles, aviation controversies and high-value arbitrations. Apart from cases, what catches attention is Nayar’s style. To quote another colleague: “He knows when to pause, when to press, when to lift the tone..and when to underscore the seriousness of a principle with gravitas”.
Restraint is not Nayar’s strong point. Neither is a soft approach. What is, is theatrics. In court, he does not necessarily raise his voice; nor does he shout, but he sure does perform and to an extent adds drama to dull courtroom battles.
A case in point is Sachdev's case yet again, where he focused on Karisma’s absence: “She was nowhere to be seen for the last 15 years,” hetold the Court.
Actress Karisma Kapoor and Sunjay were divorced in 2016. Sunjay died in June this year from a “bee sting” while playing polo.
For someone who has often been described as a “master of court craft,” Nayar's every appearance in court is a combination of performance, persuasion, and submissions that spell rigour, hard work, and painstaking preparation.
Those Nayar has mentored confirm that he insists that every brief is read from cover to cover, fact-checked, and delivered with precision and conviction: “The Law we learnt is not only reason but also an art,” a junior remarked.
Nayar is also among those who have discouraged a copy-book style, urging his juniors to discover what they say is “his or her own voice”. In other words, find, develop and evolve their own distinct style. Watch Nayar in action in the courts and one will know where he comes from: “When he leaves the courtroom, the air is different” one of his clients reportedly said.
The Lifetime Achievement Award conferred on Nayar is only one step in his eventful journey. The curtains are not going down, at least not as yet: “There will be many more,” Nayar silently promised his parents as he placed the plaque below their portrait on the mantelpiece.
