Fitzpatrick was wrong about the Imperial Diamond Case curing the Nizam’s ‘mania’ for precious stones, but his observation about Jacob’s desire to have the case settled out of court was unusually prescient for someone who had nearly let the diamond deal slip past him unnoticed.
The first hint that Jacob was exploring such an option came in a report in a Calcutta newspaper on the day Fitzpatrick was appearing before the commission suggesting that the charges against Jacob ‘would be difficult to prove’. Quoting unnamed sources, it hinted that there was little to be gained ‘by pressing the point against the accused unduly’ and reported that ‘a reasonable settlement’ to the case was being sought.33
It is safe to assume that the unnamed sources were people close to Jacob and that he had decided to flag the option of an out-of-court settlement as time was running out. On October 22, Woodroffe appeared before the Magistrate’s Court and asked the Chief Presidency Magistrate to commit Jacob for trial at the High Court. It was then Inverarity’s turn to make a last attempt to have the case dismissed. Addressing the Magistrate, he said that, as Jacob’s English was not good enough, he had prepared a written statement for the court. Justice Handley then turned to Jacob and asked whether he wished to say anything. ‘I wish to say something which I have put in writing and which I have signed. I reserve my defence, but wish to make a statement here.’ Asked if he wanted to call any witnesses, Jacob replied that he would furnish a list to the Clerk of the Crown.
The statement was a final attempt to sway the proceedings in his favour. In it, he stated he had never had any fraudulent intentions regarding the sale of the diamond. Mahboob Ali Khan was his best customer and to forfeit his confidence would be to ‘ruin his business with other native Princes’. He believed that Abid had had the authority to tell him the Nizam had offered 4 million rupees for the diamond. The Nizam would have concluded the purchase but for the objections of the Resident. Had he not believed the Nizam intended to buy the stone, ‘he would not have been such a fool as to pay away nearly 21 lakhs, getting in return a stone that could be of no use to him’.
Jacob also insisted that nothing was said about passand ya na passand during the original interview in March when the Nizam had agreed to buy the diamond, but he admitted to subsequently agreeing to giving him that option. He denied that the 2.3 million-rupee deposit was to remain in his name till the stone was approved. He considered the money he drew from it as his own, as he had plenty of other money to repay the Nizam if it ever became due to him. However, he had never doubted that the Nizam would take the diamond. He concluded his statement by saying he had ‘many other facts and arguments to urge which will be reserved for the High Court’.34
On October 25, after examining the evidence taken in Calcutta and Hyderabad, the Presidency Magistrate ruled that Jacob had a case to answer and committed him to stand trial at the High Court. Bail was extended and the trial was set for early December.
A week after his committal, Jacob and Shirley Tremearne boarded a train in Allahabad bound for Calcutta.35 Sharing the same compartment were Albert Abid and the Nizam’s counsel, Hormusjee Nusserwanjee. The meeting was no accident. Jacob and his business partner were desperate to hammer out a deal that would avoid a full-blown and costly High Court trial.
Jacob felt as if, like the speeding train, he was hurtling towards a financial and personal catastrophe. Since the charges were brought against him in early September, his jewellery and antiques business had suffered, his network of informants had sunk into the shadows, and he was being treated as an outcast by the same people who had once jostled to gain entry to his Simla shop and mansion. His legal fees were mounting and he was now facing another lengthy court battle.
He was pawning off his jewellery faster then he could keep track of it. In the past few weeks, he had sold 450,000 rupees worth of gems to the Maharaj Rana of Dholpur and the Maharaja of Patiala. He had borrowed 100,000 rupees from the Alliance Bank in Simla and owed Tremearne 100,000 rupees for brokering the sale of the diamond. The pressure that was coming from all sides to settle the case out of court had reached breaking point.
As the train thundered across the Gangetic plains, Jacob outlined his terms to Nusserwanjee. Short of a confession of criminal intention, he was willing to offer a complete surrender.36 He was prepared to give up the diamond if the Nizam dropped his demand for a return of the deposit.
When the train reached Calcutta, Nusserwanjee went to Sanderson & Co. to confer with the firm’s senior partner, Robert Upton. A few days later, on November 6, a draft settlement was ready for referral to Advocate General Justice Wilson who was scheduled to hear the matter. The only outstanding issue was the 150,000 rupees in currency notes out of the deposit money impounded by the Magistrate’s Court that Jacob claimed he had spent legally.
Unknown to Jacob, Nusserwanjee had forwarded a copy of the letters and telegrams pertaining to the proposed settlement to the Assistant Commissioner in the Punjab, Trevor Chichele Plowden, who was scheduled to take over the post of Resident at Hyderabad after Fitzpatrick’s retirement.
Plowden sent a telegram to William Cuningham outlining the contents of the correspondence and his account of the negotiations. Jacob had thrown ‘himself upon the Nizam’s mercy’, declaring that he was ‘a ruined man’ and begging to be allowed to keep the 150,000 rupees. ‘He entreated that this might be made over to him for his livelihood, etc., and he declared he would sooner stand the risk of a trial than give up this money.’ Plowden speculated that Jacob’s insistence was probably due to the 100,000 rupees he owed Tremearne.37
Jacob booked into the Great Eastern Hotel and waited for the prosecution’s next move. The decision was unusually swift. Upton’s advice was to accept the deal, but Jacob should be allowed to keep only 50,000 rupees. He had hardly enough time to digest this news before the Advocate General overruled that advice. In a major blow to his case, Wilson ruled that it was ‘too dangerous’ to continue negotiations on an out-of-court settlement and that ‘no monetary concession ought to be made to him out of the 1.5 lakhs (150,000 rupees) impounded by the court’.38
Jacob was furious. His first reaction was to go to Abid. Though he now despised his former friend, he had little choice. With all options for an out-of-court settlement now closed, his only chance to avoid a conviction was to stop Abid from appearing before the High Court. The price he offered him for his silence was 50,000 rupees. Abid turned it down.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE IMPERIAL DIAMOND CASE
STANDING proudly a short distance from the Hoogly river, the Calcutta High Court is one of the busiest in the world. There are 34 courtrooms, 58 judges and 8500 advocates. Clerks sit beside huge stacks of files waiting for cases to be called, as legal practitioners and their clients confer in the wings. Policemen in khaki shorts and sloppy berets with old-fashioned rifles slung over their shoulders wait to frisk people entering the courts. Inside, court attendants wearing red and gold turbans, white uniforms and decorative sashes and belts wait for their instructions.
One of the most imposing buildings in Calcutta, the High Court was modelled on the Town Hall at Ypres, in Belgium. Its tower, Thacker’s Guide to Calcutta remarked, looked ‘as if it could not quite make up its mind whether it ought or ought not to have a clock’.1
Outside the building, tea stalls and shops offering ‘evidence xerox’, lamination, typing and those all-important rubber stamps, do a thriving trade. Open-air bookstalls carry copies of the Divorce Act, 1869 and the Factories Act 1948, as well as reprints of British case law.
Except for the taxis, the fax machines and the Vodafone advertisements, the chaotic scene was much the same on the afternoon of Friday, December 11, 1891, as members of the public, the press and potential jurors arrived at the High Court for the case of Queen Empress vs A.M. Jacob. The Pioneer reported that spaces around the table bar and the jury box in the Sessions Court were filled for hours before the hearing was scheduled to start.2 As the time drew nearer, Sir C
harles Paul, who was leading the prosecution’s case arrived in the court room assisted by James Woodroffe and John Dunne. ‘Rumour had it, with some truth it would seem, that these gentlemen were only outward and visible signs of the amount of legal skill retained in this case,’ noted the newspaper.3 Apart from John Inverarity, the defence team comprised Richard Garth and Tindal Arthur Pearson, both able barristers but mere minnows compared to the calibre of those representing the Nizam. Notably absent was William Rattigan who had arrived from Lahore on Saturday to assist Inverarity.
Despite the general acknowledgement that Jacob was handicapped because all the leading counsel in Calcutta had been retained for the prosecution, there was opposition among members of the local Bar to Rattigan’s appearing because he was from Lahore. The power for granting leave to counsel from outside Calcutta rested with the judge, but Rattigan felt he was in a no-win situation. Even if his application was not rejected, he would have to put up with considerable hostility. ‘This was not a position in which a counsel of Mr Rattigan’s position, himself the leader of the Lahore Bar, could possibly submit to be placed and he, therefore, threw up his brief,’ the Pioneer reported. ‘Considering how the members of the Calcutta Bar go far afield, appearing both in the Allahabad High Court and the Chief Court at Lahore, it might have been thought that they would have extended a welcome to Mr Rattigan instead of resenting his appearance amongst them,’ the paper noted dryly.4
Rattigan’s absence was not the only setback. Three weeks earlier, Garth had applied to Justice Wilson for a summons to be served on the Nizam’s minister Asman Jah as a witness for the defence. Wilson refused because Jah was a subject of, and resident in, a native state. Jah’s evidence, the defence had hoped, would reveal the forces working behind the Hyderabad Government. It was an open secret, the Hindu’s well-informed correspondent in that city noted, ‘that, but for the influence of the party in power we should never have heard of the prosecution against Jacob’. Without naming Jah, it hinted that the main motive in bringing about the prosecution was the ‘smashing up of Jacob as a political character in Hyderabad’, and getting rid of Abid.5
The defence had also decided on a risky strategy of putting the onus on the prosecution to prove its case rather than have Jacob defend himself. His only opportunity to put forward his version of events was the prepared statement read out at the committal hearing on October 22. For all his bravado about revealing the conspiracies behind his prosecution, Jacob would not be taking the stand. He had been effectively silenced by his legal team.
Dressed in his trademark white duck jacket and vest, Jacob looked pensive as he took his seat in the dock to the left of the judges’ bench. Opposite him in the teak-panelled Sessions Court was a jury of nine Europeans. Inverarity had successfully challenged the empanelling of five Indians, thereby reducing the likelihood that the jury might sympathize with the Nizam. More than a dozen reporters sat at the back of the court. All the major English language dailies were represented, as well as the vernacular press. The small public gallery was crowded with members of the public curious to witness the opening of what promised to be a David vs Goliath contest.
Jacob took an oath on the Bible and then listened as Justice Wilson read out the thirteen charges against him under sections 406, 409 and 403 of the penal code. In total, he was charged with nine counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of criminal misappropriation and one count of breach of trust as a merchant with respect to the 2.3 million-rupee deposit on the Imperial Diamond. Jacob pleaded not guilty to all charges.
After Inverarity had asked for permission to appear for the accused and the charges were read out for a second time to the jury, Sir Charles Paul began his opening address. ‘This is a very grave and important case,’ he began in a sombre tone, directly addressing the jurors. ‘It demands—and I am sure it will receive at your hands—the most serious consideration and careful attention.
‘It is a case which is of the most vital importance to the prisoner himself, because it concerns his character, his reputation and his future welfare. It is equally a matter of the gravest concern to the Crown, for, if the facts which are before you are true, a grave offence has been committed, and in the interest of justice, the person committing this offence should be severely punished.’
Paul then urged the jurors to look at the evidence rather than the coverage the case was receiving in the press. ‘No doubt it is a very painful matter to see a man who has hitherto held a respectable position in life placed in the humiliating position of the accused, and while such a circumstance as that, no doubt, may create some sympathy in your hearts, you must remember that no correct judgment may be arrived at through the medium of feelings. Your common sense, your judgment must be drawn upon, your reason must be convinced, and we think that if the facts we lay before you are true, a most serious and gigantic fraud has been committed on the Nizam, one of the greatest independent Princes of India.’
The crux of the case, Paul continued, centred on the substitute contract in which the Nizam had allegedly agreed to purchase the diamond for a lesser price: ‘There is no evidence to support it, and of course it will be said the prisoner’s mouth is closed.’ On this and other matters, the accused had prepared a statement which had been read to the jury ‘and you will give him the benefit of anything that may strike you as truthful, honourable, probable or likely to have taken place’.
Paul then proceeded to outline the case. What the jury had to consider, he said, was that the accused had been entrusted with 2.3 million rupees for obtaining the diamond for the Nizam for inspection and that, if not approved, whether the money should have been returned. As the prosecution would show, Jacob had kept both the money and the diamond, so, the Nizam had lost out altogether. He then summarized the history of Jacob’s dealings with the Nizam, a ‘young man of six- or seven-and-twenty’ whom he had tried to dupe into believing that the diamond was worth 12 million rupees, before dropping the price to 5 million rupees and finally to 4.6 million.
‘When Mr Jacob told the Nizam that the diamond could be obtained for 50 lakhs he very probably knew that what he was stating was deliberately false’. Indeed, Paul continued, ‘you will find his statements teem with falsehoods’. Jacob, he said, was no more honest than Joseph Surface, a character in Richard Sheridan’s play, The School for Scandal: ‘Full of morality, full of fine sentiment, but internally, habitually altogether wrong and immoral.’
Although Jacob had seen Abid on July 21, the day the Nizam rejected the stone, nothing was said about a new contract. Yet, on the following day, three hours into his journey from Hyderabad to Bombay, Jacob had sent a telegram to Kilburn & Co. to the effect that the Nizam had agreed to buy the diamond for 4 million rupees. ‘Our case is that there is not a single shred of truth in that’.
Nor was there any truth, Paul added, in the claim that he did not know that Abid had telegrammed him on July 21, asking him to return the 2.3 million rupees before he remitted £150,000 to London that day. Jacob knew that, if he remitted the money, it would put the Nizam in a corner and compel him to take the diamond. ‘He tried to avoid a true case by setting up a false one.’
Looking up at the judge, Paul saw a look of impatience cross his face. He then glanced at the clock. He had been talking for two hours and it was time for the court to rise. ‘I suppose you must take considerable time in your opening,’ Justice Wilson remarked. ‘Oh, yes, my Lord,’ Paul responded. The court was adjourned.6
Day one of the High Court trial had produced no smoking gun but it was clear that the prosecution’s case would focus on the alleged contract binding the Nizam to buy the stone for 4 million rupees and what took place on the morning of July 27 when Jacob remitted £150,000 pounds to the diamond’s owners in London.
Paul began the second day of his opening address by going over the events of July 27, focusing on Jacob’s decision to ignore Abid’s telegram telling him to return the deposit and purchasing the diamond outright, while pocketing 177,000 r
upees in the process, thanks to changes in the exchange rate. ‘In short, he was conscious that his only chance was to put on bold effrontery, send the money away, and then stand the storm,’ Paul told the jury. ‘He became very cheeky to everybody, and thought he would go through by brazen impudence.’ The claim that there was a substitute contract was nothing more than the assertion of a man whose statements were full of falsehoods, devices and contradictions ‘from beginning to end’.7
After concluding his opening address, Woodroffe called Abid as the first witness. Inverarity insisted that a Persian translator be present to check his statements and suggested that, in the meantime, the court deal with the question of whether the Nizam’s evidence taken at the special commission in Hyderabad was admissible.
It was a clever move by Inverarity who, despite his earlier assurances, knew there were solid legal grounds for not admitting the commission’s evidence in the High Court. Paul attempted to head off those arguments by saying that the evidence had been taken properly and, unless some special advantage were to be gained, there was no need to have the Nizam appear at a second commission. He then read out an affidavit explaining why it was ‘excessively inconvenient for the Nizam to come to Calcutta’. His appearance ‘would entail the absence also of the Minister and Secretaries and paralyse the business of the state.’ Referring to the dissatisfaction that the Nizam’s initial examination by the commission had caused, he said that going to Calcutta would be far more controversial. Besides, it would be necessary to bring all the women of his zenana and a thousand people at a cost of some five million rupees.8
The Mysterious Mr Jacob: Diamond Merchant, Magician and Spy Page 19
