Dear Five

Congratulations. To be appointed as judges of the High Court is a cosmic blessing. Even among the best of lawyers only a few are chosen to the calling. Often it is more than a product of knowledge and success. It is a jurisprudential mutation for the practising lawyer. Some who never wanted to be there adorn the bench. Many who clamoured for it ended addressing it!! It is a huge constitutional responsibility and not just a milestone in a career or a moment of recognition. It is not just about changing tracks or declaring verdicts.
You five some as a collective are arguably one of the best ‘teams’ selected in a while and surely each of you have put in wonderful years at the Bar to be sensitive to the demands of the calling. American historian and academician Howard Zinn stated accurately what you know through decades of experience: In the austere chambers of the Court, life and death matters are decided in an atmosphere of genial academic debate. Having participated by choice in the debate, you now are called upon to navigate the debate and would be called upon to deal with the fate of citizens and their faith. The task when realised is shred of glamour and filled with responsibility. To deal with not just the lives but the fate of persons by calling is not going to be easy. It can in time however become mechanical and let me caution you against it now.
I take the liberty through this column to state from the Bar a few concerns, so that your tenure would not just be personally satisfying by socially relevant. We have had in the past, judges of myriad hues. Some learned, some balanced. Some who let the heart rule the head and some who looked at the calling as a cerebral exercise. We have had learned men who with all their learning (or exactly because of that!) brought a willingness to be persuaded to an opinion different from what they held, some who heckled the bar with the poise of their learning (?). In other jurisprudential spheres it is permissible to classify judges by their school of thought and even analyse their stances by their political vision. In India this could be seen as contempt of court. Constitutional defalcations will be a huge challenge not so much in fact as in perception. Please, please do not arrogate to yourself the belief that you know best and that you are the paramount guardian of the system. In a system governed by the right to expression and structured to debate, to shut off a debate for want of time is patently unjust.
I have not had the privilege of being on the bench so I speak from theory. I thus choose to quote the wise words of Lord Denning who said :
For a judge it is important to be intelligent. He doesn’t need to be an intellectual. Often an intellectual judge tends to be more clever than fair. A judge must be a person with good sense and good judgment. He must be able to understand the arguments advanced in his court fully and in their correct perspective. Again, a judge must have a wide knowledge of the world. He should not live in ivory towers.
Our constitution enjoins on you a vital role in translating its purpose and intent – both of which is what you say it is. Our constitution is also not just a rule book. The paramount parchment with all its contemporary dents and repair is designed for the well-being of the nation and by deduction its people. As Bharata Bhagya Vidhatas you have a great if sensitive role to play. Unsolicited though it may be it is time to recall how the Bar saw Justice Iyer when he laid down office. A fine litmus test if you are willing to take the bait:
Yours has been a restless and rebellious quest for justice. You have dared and defied and you have drawn your sword of thoughts and words when many would have been content to be reticent and complacent. Your ideas have seldom failed to stir and to provoke. Sometimes you may have gone too far and sometimes you may not have gone far enough, but at all times, there was unfailing courtesy and consideration going hand in hand with a spiritual translucence and equipoise of goodwill, sincerity, compassion and understanding in your judicial and extra-judicial pathways.

As you journey from the Bar to the Bench – a huge journey, form the well meaning at the Bar: Bon voyage.!!