JUSTICE DORAB PATEL: GREAT PAKISTANI PASSES AWAY

[Moin Ansari]

Monday, March 17, 1997

Hundreds pay last respects to Dorab Patel

By our correspondent

KARACHI: Justice (retd) Dorab Patel bade farewell to his 1-Sunnyside Road
residence and left for
the Tower of Silence on Sunday evening. He had succumbed to a week-old
stroke on Saturday
evening after negotiating with acute leukemia for a year.

A serene sadness pervaded his house where scores of people were gathered,
while the last prayers
were going on inside the house as per Parsi traditions. Two wreaths from
the chief justice of
Pakistan and the HRCP were placed outside the room, where Patel's body
was placed. But no
photographer was allowed to capture his last glimpse.

One of Patel's servants, Shaukat Ali, who was very close to him, said: "I
feel so sad at Dorab
Saheb's death É there was no flaw in his character." Chief Justice of
Pakistan, Mr Justice Sajjad Ali
Shah, who arrived with a floral wreath at the final prayer, remembered
the departed soul as "God
fearing, conscientious and honest É a model judge for others to emulate."

Patel's body was taken to the Tower of Silence in Parsi Colony at 4:50 pm
by the Karachi Parsi
Anjuman Trust Fund's funeral van. Dinshaw Bharuja, the van driver, was
also missing the benign
jurist he had known for several years.

Among the hundreds of people who visited Dorab's house were Asma Jehangir
and I A Rehman of
the HRCP, Prof N D Khan, Yousuf Haroon, Ardeshir Cowasjee, Mr Justice
(retd) Khuda Bux
Mari, Mr Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, Sardar Sherbaz
Mazari, Nazim F
Haji, M M Usmani.