The Case Files
In six decades at the Bar he appeared in a great many cases, in trial courts across Tamil Nadu and all the way to the Supreme Court. Some of the most prominent are told below in the order they came, from the record and with his part in each.
On the afternoon of 12 January 1967, the actor M. R. Radha called on M. G. Ramachandran at his home at St. Thomas' Mount, accompanied by the producer Vasu. The two had played hero and villain in some of the biggest Tamil films of the decade, and by then their rivalry had left the screen. A talk about film business became an argument. As he rose to leave, Radha drew a revolver from his dhoti, fired at MGR from close range, and then turned the weapon on himself.
The bullet struck MGR near the left ear and lodged in his neck. Both men survived surgery at the General Hospital in Madras while the crowds outside turned violent. The shooting came weeks before the 1967 Assembly elections, in which MGR was the DMK's star campaigner and its candidate at St. Thomas' Mount.
The Crime Branch CID found that MGR and Radha owned identical .420 Webley and Scott revolvers, bought on the same day from the same Madras firm in the early 1950s. MGR had kept his licence current. Radha's had lapsed and was never renewed. At the committal proceedings before the Sub-Magistrate at Saidapet that May, the prosecution examined seven witnesses, and the bullets removed from both men were marked as exhibits.
At trial the defence put forward another account: that there had been a struggle for a gun, and that it was Radha who had been fired upon. The case turned on the forensic record. The State Forensic Science Laboratory and the prosecution's firearms expert traced the bullets, including those taken from Radha himself, to Radha's own revolver.
His part
Twelve years into his practice, N. Natarajan was on the team that defended Radha. In a case that turned on firearms evidence, the sternest test for the defence lay in the witness box of the expert, and it was there that he made his mark. Senior Advocate N. R. Elango, one of his juniors, has described his cross examination of the ballistic expert as a textbook lesson in examining a forensic and scientific witness.
Sources
At the end of October 1977, as Indira Gandhi toured Tamil Nadu, black flag demonstrations by the DMK at Madurai turned violent. In the prosecutions that followed, M. Karunanidhi, the former Chief Minister, and a number of his colleagues were charged with a range of offences, among them conspiracy to murder her. It was a charged moment in the State's politics, and the cases were followed closely across the country.
His part
Natarajan was on the team for the defence. He represented Karunanidhi in a great many cases over the years, and this was among the gravest of them, the charge of conspiracy to murder a serving Prime Minister. The prosecution did not hold, and Karunanidhi was released unconditionally on 8 December 1977.
Sources
On 12 March 1993, twelve bombs exploded across Bombay within a few hours, killing 257 people and injuring hundreds more. The investigation passed to the CBI, and the accused were tried before a Designated Court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. It became one of the largest criminal trials India has conducted: 129 accused stood trial.
His part
The CBI engaged Natarajan as a Special Public Prosecutor, and that was itself unusual. He had spent years appearing against the agency, and it rarely briefs a lawyer who has done so. He opposed every bail application the accused brought. Yet when charges came to be framed, he told the court that against some of those arrayed as accused there was no material on which to charge them.
He always believed a prosecutor must first be fair.
N. R. Elango, Senior Advocate
Sources
Diaries and papers seized in CBI raids on the Jain brothers recorded large payments that appeared to have reached politicians and officials across the political spectrum. Vineet Narain v. Union of India, the public interest petition that followed, pressed the agencies to pursue everyone named without fear or favour. It grew into one of the defining cases on the independence of the country's investigating agencies.
His part
Natarajan appeared as Senior Advocate for the respondents. Justice Sunder Mohan, then a junior in his chamber and now a judge of the High Court of Madras, assisted him in the case.
In its judgment of 18 December 1997, the Supreme Court laid down a set of directions to insulate the Central Bureau of Investigation from extraneous influence and placed it under the statutory supervision of the Central Vigilance Commission, a landmark in the law on the independence of the investigating agencies.
Sources
On the night of 21 May 1991, a suicide bomber killed Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister, at Sriperumbudur. Eighteen others died with him and 43 were seriously injured. A Designated Court under TADA convicted all twenty six accused and sentenced every one of them to death. The sentences came to the Supreme Court as Death Reference No. 1 of 1998, heard together with the appeals of the convicts.
His part
Natarajan led the defence, appearing as senior counsel for every appellant but one, in a hearing that ran for over three months. He contended that confessions recorded under TADA could not be used to convict the appellants under the Penal Code once the TADA charges failed, relying on the Court's decision in Bilal Ahmed Kaloo. N. R. Elango has said that he convinced the Court this was a murder, not an act of terrorism.
On sentence, he pleaded that Nalini's death sentence should not be confirmed: she was young, the mother of a daughter born in prison, had come to regret her part, and had been drawn in by others rather than playing a major role.
The Court set aside every conviction under TADA, holding that the charges did not make out a terrorist act.
On Nalini the bench divided. Justice Thomas would have spared her life. Justices Wadhwa and Quadri confirmed the sentence, though Justice Quadri wrote that whether to sentence a woman to death had troubled him for a considerable time. Her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000, and she was released in 2022.
Sources
In 1986 India signed a contract worth about Rs 1,437 crore with the Swedish manufacturer AB Bofors for 155 mm howitzers. Allegations that commissions had been paid to secure it became one of the defining political controversies of the late 1980s, and the CBI's investigation ran for well over a decade.
His part
Natarajan appeared as counsel for the CBI. On 9 October 2000 the agency filed a supplementary charge sheet against the three Hinduja brothers, Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash, alleging that they had received 81 million Swedish kronor from AB Bofors.
When the wife and family of the comedian Nagesh, one of the best loved actors of Tamil cinema, were arrested on charges of murder arising from a bitter family dispute, they turned to Natarajan for their defence.
His part
He appeared for the family in their defence, as he so often did when a criminal charge met a well known name. It was work of exactly the kind that made his reputation, quiet, thorough, and on the side of a fair trial whoever the accused.
Sources