ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches the life and work of Justice Keshavrao Koratkar, who was a judge of the High Court of Hyderabad in the third decade of the last century.
He was born in 1867 in a small village in the Marathwada region. He had his elementary education at Gulbarga but thereafter did various clerical jobs for a number of years. However, he later appeared for the pleaders’ examination that the Hyderabad High Court used to conduct those days and for which the eligibility criterion was only a pass in Standard IV. The curriculum used to be demanding and the medium used to be Urdu. Koratkar passed the examination in high grade and he got a first-class lawyer’s sanad (licence). He was entitled to practise in the High Court, but he chose to start his practice at Gulbarga.
After six or seven years at Gulbarga, Koratkar shifted to Hyderabad and began his practice in the High Court. Before long he commanded a good practice and appeared in many important cases, such as the Kuber murder case.
