A lot of people must remember what was known as
the "Mr. A case," heard before Mr. Justice Darling some twenty-five years ago, with Sir John Simon and Mr. Rayner Goddard, K.C. (the present Lord Chief Justice) appearing for the defendants, the Midland Bank. It was a cause célèbre, the more so for the Mystery attaching
to Mr. A., whose identity the India Office was particularly anxious should remain undisclosed. The details of the case are immaterial now. Actually the question was whether the bank should have paid out a sum of £130,000 to a person who was not Mr. Robinson, the money being part of a sum disgorged by Mr. A for the benefit of the aggrieved husband of Mrs. Robinson, who was found in bed with Mr. A at a Paris hotel. The full report of the case has just appeared at 16s. in Messrs. Jarrold's well-known Old Bailey Trial Series (though the hearing actually took place at the Law Courts). It has a double interest in that it is edited, with an illuminating foreword, by C. E. Bechofer Roberts, who was killed in a motor accident in the Eaton Road not many weeks ago ; and that Mr. A is none other than His Highness Maharajah Sir Hari Singh, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., 6.C.V.O., Ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, whose accession to the Dominion of India in October, 1947, contrary to the ikishes of the Muslim majority of his subjects, is the cause of the whole dangerous dispute which has been exeicising the United Nations for the last two years ; The Mr. A. Case should have something of a sale in Karachi.
* * * *
Previous page
