VC George, smalltown boy who became a legal giant

 

VC George credits his legal success to being ‘a right man at a right place’. (Fauzi Yunus @ FMT Lifestyle)

KUALA LUMPUR: One of Malaysia’s most respected legal minds, Vadaketh Chacko George, fondly known as VC George, almost became a dentist. But dentistry’s loss soon became the legal profession’s biggest gain.

Over the decades, VC made lasting contributions to the legal community. It was no surprise then that he received the Malaysian Bar’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

The 93-year-old shared his story with FMT Lifestyle recently.

Born to VE Chacko and Thankammah Chacko of Klang, VC was the fourth of seven siblings. His father was a teacher at Klang’s Anglo Chinese School, where he was a student.

Life in small-town Klang was idyllic. “In those days,” he recalled, “nobody used cars. In our school, I think two of the teachers had motorcars. The others, including my father, cycled to school every day. The rest of us used to walk.”

When he was about 12, things took a drastic change when the Japanese invaded Malaya. “In those days, we had English-medium schools as well as vernacular schools. The Japanese came and converted everything into Japanese-medium schools. So, in my school, from using English as a medium of education, we started using Japanese.”

VC with his wife, the late Dr Rebecca George. (VC George pic)

Within three years, he became proficient enough in Japanese to become an interpreter for a Japanese garrison in Banting. Besides Japanese, he also spoke Tamil and Malay.

Life under Japanese rule was tough, and food was scarce. But his innovative parents converted their 1.4 hectares of land into a farm where they grew vegetables and raised livestock.

It was a teacher who first recognised VC’s potential as a lawyer. His parents, however, wanted him to study medicine. After passing the Senior Cambridge Examination, he got a place for dentistry at the University of Malaya in Singapore. But he discovered soon enough that dentistry wasn’t his cup of tea.

Remembering his teacher’s encouragement, he switched to law, making his way to London in 1952. He came back to Malaya four years later and began chambering with Sen & Lim in Kuala Lumpur.

Over the following years, he specialised in commercial work such as banking and intellectual property. He was elected to serve on the Malaysian Bar Council in 1965, and between 1974 and 1976, he was president of the Malaysian Bar.

VC with his son, Chacko George Vadaketh. (Fauzi Yunus @ FMT Lifestyle)

A new beginning dawned for him when in 1981, he became a High Court judge. His first posting was to Kuantan, a three-month stint that extended into three years.

Thinking it was only temporary, VC didn’t look for a house to live in. “I stayed in the Hyatt hotel. After two years, people started mistaking me for the general manager of the Hyatt.” He moved to a house after that.

In April 1983, he became one of five judges in the new commercial division of Kuala Lumpur’s High Court.

“My heyday was as the head of the commercial division when some of the biggest commercial cases in the country came before me. I had great lawyers like Cyrus Das, Tommy Thomas and Lim Kian Chye appearing before me.”

Outside the legal field, various extracurricular activities kept VC busy. He was an active member of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, serving in its highest committees. He was also the president of the Royal Selangor Club twice and continues to be a patron for the All Malaysia Malayalee Association.

His wife, now deceased, was Dr Rebecca George. A well-known paediatrician, she too was a trailblazer and was instrumental in improving children’s healthcare in the country. Of their three children and three grandchildren, half have studied law.

In 1995, VC retired as a Court of Appeal judge, becoming a consultant with prestigious law firm Skrine, where he remains until today.

VC George holding a copy of the book ‘Some stories I have told and some that I haven’t’ that he wrote during the pandemic. (Fauzi Yunus @ FMT Lifestyle)

Not one to stay idle, even during the Covid pandemic, he wrote a book titled “Some stories I have told and some that I haven’t”, donating the proceeds from its sale to various charity organisations.

He is modest about his achievements, saying he never expected to scale the heights he did.

“I was a mediocre student. I never expected to get anywhere. Eventually, I got to some high places not because of any special ability. I happened to be a right man at a right place.”

Receiving the Malaysian Bar’s Lifetime Achievement Award, he said, remained the highlight of his career. “I’m very proud to have received that award from my peers, the lawyers in the country.

“Today, in my opinion, we have a very sound judiciary with the acclaimed Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, Chief Justice of Malaysia, doing a fantastic job. A number of other judges with her, Nallini Pathmanathan, Mary Lim and so on are also doing a fabulous job. We have a judiciary that we should be very proud of.” - FMT