Discussions around madurai remind me one of the stories when I was in college.

While studying, I was also working with a lawyer in Madurai District Court. One of the cases I thoroughly enjoyed working was a civil case. A money decree suit involving promissory notes & cheques.

The file came to my senior at the very late stage of the trial. It was a dead case against our client (who was a settu, had a shop around Meenakshi Amman temple).

but clients had valid reasons outside the documents executed, which I won't go into.

Senior filed a 1-pager memo (literally wrote it on a white paper) asking the other side/ plaintiff to file their income tax returns for the relevant period, in the middle of the cross examination.

Obviously the returns didn't reflect the monies supposedly paid by the plaintiff.

Senior carefully guided the entire trial to show that there was no "legal" money given to our client - for which a claim can be entertained.

I was in 4th year. saw the entire trial real close. did research. gave him case-laws. prepared pleadings.

Final judgment came in. We won. (the case-laws that I gave were mentioned in the judgment). We were super elevated. I was over the moon. We had a biriyani party in office.

If the other side had to file an appeal in HC, they had to shell out substantial amount as court fees.

Next day, I got to know that our client had settled the case - by giving up his shop or some such.

I was like - whaaaaaaaat.

Only after a week or so, I was told that the other side paid 1/3rd of that court fees to Annan & co. And, they did what they do.

Senior nonchalantly said welcome to the litigation world.