Jacob used to visit New Delhi once or twice a year. He would then see the commercial attaché at the Finnish Embassy to find out whether there were any prospects of business with Finnish companies as companies from all the other Scandinavian countries were extremely active in setting up joint ventures in India. The Finns were less enthusiastic about India. I had never ever visited the Finnish Embassy during my stay in India. The correspondence that I would get was information regarding some election or the other in Finland in which I was entitled to vote. I was hardly likely to travel 3000 km to exercise my vote for some person or system that I did not have any connection with at that moment as it was so remote from me.

In another instance I received a letter from the Embassy informing me that in case of some natural or other calamity in the region where I lived, I, as a Finnish national, could be given help and if need be, evacuated. I was asked to fill in some forms. This I did not do as it would have meant that while I was being rescued by the Embassy, I would have to wave farewell to the rest of my family, as none of them were Finns. They would remain trapped in those circumstances as they were outside of this rescue plan.

On one occasion when Jacob visited the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi, one of the senior attachés asked him if there was anything he could do. Jacob told him that there was nothing that could be done by the Embassy. He explained that what we were doing was the only way to resolve the issue.

Time passed. The same situation continued. It was many months after that I let my family in Finland know that I was facing an unjust and unexpected difficulty with the law. In a letter to my elder brother, Erkki, in Tampere, I explained what was happening.

Erkki was worried for me. He went to the Foreign Ministry in Helsinki and asked if there was any way in which they could help. They sent a letter to the Finnish Embassy asking them to approach the External Affairs Ministry in India to resolve this matter. A letter, in true diplomatic language, was sent on 24 October 1983 from the Embassy of Finland to the Indian External Affairs Ministry and it read as follows:

"The Embassy of Finland presents its compliments to the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India and has the honour to inform the Ministry that the Police Station of Basavangudi, Karnataka, has confiscated the passport of Finnish citizen Mrs. Annikki Matthan, w/o Mr. Jacob Matthan resident of Market Road, Basavangudi.... on April 21st 1981 because of confusion and misunderstanding regarding her sojourn permit application in India. The case has been in the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore since February 1982.

Mrs. Matthan wishes to move back to Finland together with her Indian husband and children and therefore requires her Finnish passport immediately.

If the passport cannot be returned to the holder, the Embassy wishes to be informed what the procedure is there for Mrs. Matthan to get back her passport and what the Embassy can do to facilitate it."

The Indian External Affairs Ministry in Delhi was quick to reply and on 11 November they sent a note to the Finnish Embassy which read thus:

"...has the honour to state that while her criminal revision petition is pending in the Karnataka High Court, Mrs. Annikki Matthan will not be able to leave India without the permission of the court. In view of the fact that she herself filed the appeal, she may be advised to seek the opinion of her counsel about withdrawing her court appeal. Thereafter she may request the Government of Karnataka to move the court of the II Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate to drop the prosecution. The Government of Karnataka would, however, have to regularise her stay to enable her to leave India.

The Ministry wishes to point out that since the matter is sub judice, Mrs. Matthan may be advised to consult her legal counsel in the matter." (Italics supplied by the author.)

This prompted the consular and administrative attaché, Pentti Lerkki of the Embassy to write a letter to the High Court in which he enclosed these notes exchanged and some other relevant documents and 'prayed' for early settlement of the matter.

This correspondence showed that the Embassy, though sincerely wanting to help me, did not understand the Indian legal system. First, they did not understand that, in the High Court, I was the petitioner against the State. I would have to sacrifice my stand, withdraw my case against the wrong decision that had been made in the Lower Court and compromise my entire legal stance of near two and a half years. Second, they did not understand that in India the government and the judiciary are two distinct entities and that it is not possible to influence the judiciary from outside. Matters have to proceed according to the law once it is placed in the hands of the judiciary, unless one of the parties decides to back down. I was certainly not going to give up my criminal revision petition in the High Court and allow myself to be subjected to a trial in the Lower Court for a crime of which I was not guilty.

It was difficult to say whether the letter from the Finnish Embassy to the High Court of Karnataka influenced the decision of the court to hear my case any earlier. On receiving a copy of the letter from the Embassy of Finland addressed to the High Court, Jacob went to see the registrar of the High Court of Karnataka. The registrar had been non-committal. He told him that the case would come up when it was due. This he said could be any day since the pending period for the case had been so long.

The case did come up on 12 December 1983, just less than two years after we had filed our criminal revision petition, but only three weeks after the receipt of the letter from the Embassy. Since the date of the letter from the Embassy was so close to the date on which the criminal revision petition was heard, it was possible to construe that the letter did accelerate the hearing. It must, however be made quite clear that the letter from the Finnish Embassy got no further than the registrar of the High Court. It had no influence on the decision of the High Court judge who heard our criminal revision petition on its merits and was quite unaware of any correspondence between the Finnish Embassy and the registrar.