sekarreporter1: https://x.com/sekarreporter1/status/1824624154563207504?t=NPNB9Hif5Ssp0V7wtr8eoA&s=08[17/08, 07:18] sekarreporter1: FAREWELL ADDRESSOFHON’BLE MR. JUSTICE S.VAIDYANATHAN,CHIEF JUSTICE, HIGH COURT OF MEGHALAYAON 16.08.2024Distinguished Brother Judges,The Registrar General and other Registrars of the High Court of Meghalaya, The Advocate General, Additional Advocates General and other Law Officers of the State, Senior Advocates and other Advocates, Officers and staff members of the High Court Registry,

[17/08, 07:18] sekarreporter1: https://x.com/sekarreporter1/status/1824624154563207504?t=NPNB9Hif5Ssp0V7wtr8eoA&s=08
[17/08, 07:18] sekarreporter1: FAREWELL ADDRESS
OF
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE S.VAIDYANATHAN,
CHIEF JUSTICE, HIGH COURT OF MEGHALAYA
ON 16.08.2024
Distinguished Brother Judges,
The Registrar General and other Registrars of the High Court of Meghalaya, The Advocate General, Additional Advocates General and other Law Officers of the State, Senior Advocates and other Advocates, Officers and staff members of the High Court Registry,
Hon’ble Mr. Justice V. Lakshmi Narayanan, Judge, High Court, Madras,
Print and electronic media,
My dear friends, family members who have come from Madras, and wellwishers and others who have joined virtually.
My hearty afternoon wishes to one and all in this august gathering!
At the outset, I thank Mr. Amit Kumar, Advocate General, Mr.K.S.Kynjing, Chairman, State Bar Council, Dr.N.Mozika, DSG and Mr.H.L.Shangreiso, Vice President, High Court Bar Association, for the kind and generous words spoken about me.

I thank my Brother Judges, who were really helpful to me in discharging my administrative duties. Whenever I was in need of guidance, they helped me immediately with a pleasing demeanor.

My special thanks to Mr. Andy, Registrar General.

I thank Mr. Sarkar, Principal Private Secretary-cum-Registrar, Mr. Lam, Deputy Registrar -cum-Private Secretary, Mrs.Sylvana, Private Secretary, Mrs.
Iada, Court Master, Mr. Vincent, Computer Section staff, two chamber Attenders, namely, Patgiri and Rai and the Protocol staff of Meghalaya High Court, Araldo, Assistant Registrar (Protocol), Ronel Singh, Ravi and Gauhati High Court, in particular.

My profound thanks to the staff working at my residence, especially, Nylla, Pandit, Amarnath, Shadap, Joel and drivers, viz., Madhu, Vishal, Kit and Demus and my special thanks to all the security personnel too.

I owe my special thanks to Mr. Abdur Rahman, my Private Secretary at the Madras High Court, who was with me here for more than 45 days, till I got accustomed with this new atmosphere.

The services rendered by Velmurugan and his wife Renuka, who are all along with me ever since the date of my tenure as Judge of Madras High Court and after my elevation as Chief Justice of this Court are really commendable.

All the staff members, both in office as well at my residence, helped me in discharging my duties with ease. Though I would like to wholeheartedly mention the names of each and every staff member, I am unable to do that owing to my inability to pronounce their names correctly, and not due to paucity of time or any other reason.

At this juncture, I would like to say that as far as I know, the Bench of this Court has not had representation from women. Hence, it is my wish that women Advocates of this Bar equip themselves to such an extent that they too form a part of the Bench.

Another feature I noticed here is that junior lawyers do not earn their due regard and it is because, they do not have an office for them. To graduate to the level of seasoned lawyers, it is essential that the junior lawyers establish a proper office with the required infrastructure, so that they can invite the attention of the litigants, thereby developing not only their practice, but also, taking an active part in the development of law. In the process, it is also imperative that they develop the habit of reading online and offline law journals and keep themselves abreast of latest judgments.

Based on my own experience, I would like to make this suggestion to the young lawyers. Junior lawyers must go to office at least by 9 a.m. on working days and be there at least upto 9 p.m. Whether they have client or not, they must be in office during a particular time. They may not be aware as to when opportunity will knock at their doors to enable them to showcase their potential. Sitting at their residence and burning midnight oil, instead of being available in office during morning hours, will not bear fruits. Be it a senior’s office or a junior’s chamber, a litigant must know that a Lawyer will be available in the office. Besides Court hours, the crucial working hours in the chambers is between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

During Court hours, at times, lawyers will be required to wait for hours and their cases may or may not be called. Till their cases are called, instead of whiling away their precious time, they can read latest judgments and also listen to the arguments of the advocates in other cases and the questions posed by the Judges. Nowadays, almost every lawyer carries a very handy I-pad, note pad, and the like, with him, he no longer needs to carry hefty bound legal journals. In this way, the lawyers can make the most of technological development.

In my view, the European style of addressing the Court, i.e. ‘I put a question to myself’ should be avoided. According to me, if a lawyer addresses the Bench as
‘Your Lordship knows’, it means, “Judge, you don’t know anything. I am addressing arguments, please listen.” Judges need the assistance of lawyers to render justice and juniors must equip themselves by availing of the opportunity. The absence of his senior in the Court is a blessing in disguise for a junior lawyer and he should make the most of it. Similarly, lawyers must also wait for the client to come and lawyers shall not be after clients.

I would like to share with you an anecdote, remaining fresh in my memory that took place before the Division Bench presided over by Justice Chandurkar, former Chief Justice of Madras High Court. When one of my colleagues was advancing her arguments, my senior asked me to be beside her, as it was a very easy case. Her English used to be fluent owing to the quality education she had in a convent school. After hearing the other side, the Chief Justice posed a question to my colleague, ‘What do you say about your case’. She replied, ‘it is a cake-walk for me’. The Chief Justice asked her ‘Do you have any citation/authority?’ My colleague was not prepared enough. Immediately, I asked my colleague to quote one judgment. However, my colleague could not repeat it. That was when the
Chief Justice said, ‘JUDGMENTS ARE LIKE INSURANCE POLICIES. IT WILL COME HANDY WHEN YOU ARE IN TROUBLE’. This is precisely the reason I urge every advocate to keep them updated with the latest judgments.

In those days, words uttered by Advocates in a different connotation in the
Court Halls in the form of cleverness, were not seriously taken note of by the Judges; rather, they enjoyed the sense of humour left behind it and the same was not reflected in their verdicts.

Sometimes, Judges would also explicitly express their humourous tendency in order to get rid of tough circumstances. In one such incident, when my Senior was arguing the case, a party-in-person standing near the Judge got fainted and that, my Senior managed to say that “hope, not because of my argument, he fainted”. Immediately, the Judge replied “in that case, we would have fainted long back”.

In an another incident, while I was arguing a case (K.N.Mudhaliar vs. P&T) before Justice Nainar Sundaram of Madras High Court in respect of billing for the poor telephone connection by the Telephone Department, I pointed out to the Judge that your Lordship, being a Sitting Judge may not face the problem of poor connection and in reply to the above, the Judge said that after my retirement, I will come to you for filing a case, if I face the similar problem.

I am also reminded of yet another incident. When I, as a Junior Advocate sought to dispense with the production of original order (Krishnamurthy vs. Indian Bank), Justice K.Venkatasamy of Madras High Court asked as to how I got the transfer order copy. Being a junior, I replied that I somehow managed to get the copy. The Judge immediately asked my Senior to address, as he was going to dismiss the case and he does not want to discourage me, a Junior Advocate.

When a case is tried, actually Judges are on trial, because both sides know the truth and it is the duty of a Judge to find out the truth.

Then, moving to virtual mode of hearing, it is my conviction that it should be taken recourse to by advocates only when they are far away from the Court or in the event of their indisposition, and it should not be resorted to as a matter of routine. The bar should keep in mind that technology development is only a supplement and not a substitute. Why I say so is, only when advocates come to Court in person, will they get familiarized with the Court ambience, body language of the other side and the bench and more importantly, the usage of phrases employed by experienced advocates and Senior Advocates, and make use of the same during the course of their arguments.

My another piece of advice to lawyers here is that they must understand that Judges expect Seniors to nail the point, whereas, they expect the juniors to advance arguments. The reason behind this is, only then, the budding advocates get graduated as Senior Advocates, over a period of years, and Judges, at a later point of time.

Now, I would like to quote Lord Tennyson from his poem ‘The Brook” in which, the brook would say, “Men may come and men may go, but, I go on forever. I would like the Bar to take a cue from this poem. The Bar should bear in mind the fact that the position of a Judge and a Lawyer is not permanent, because, Judges will retire one day and lawyers too may not be able to continue their practice owing to age factor. But, the institution called the ‘Court’ will continue to exist. For the development of law and fair dispensation of justice, the Court must have knowledgeable Judges and really learned and well informed advocates. To equip themselves, the junior lawyers must learn from their seniors not the trick of the trade but the trade itself, so that they can shine in their profession, thereby contributing to the society at large and the law, in particular.

I do not agree that both the Bar and Bench are two sides of the coin, as one side of the coin never see the other. The example of coin may be referred to the Husband and Wife. They are construed to be two sides of a coin. Though they cannot face each other, they still stay together. Once you love, wonders may happen, but once married, you may wonder what happened. The Bar and the Bench are considered as the two wheels of a chariot that play a role in administering the law. If one wheel is disrupted, the other wheel cannot function and the chariot will not move.

Judges may disagree with other Brother/Sister Judges, as they always think that their decision is final. That is the reason why Judges address other Judges as Brothers/Sisters. Insofar as Advocates are concerned, they refer to each other as friends. Though they fight for their clients’ rights inside Court halls, they continue to be friends outside the Court Hall.

In my 11 years of Judgeship, on many occasions, I found that “
” which means that truth does not triumph and if you triumph, that is the truth, which is the present trend. It is mainly due to the delay in disposal of cases, shortage of Judges.

It is pertinent to point out that everyone is aware about the retirement of Judges in a particular year. In a rarest of rare cases, there may be exceptions of vacancies, owing to VRS, resignation, death or punishment. Hence, vacancies should be identified every year in the month of January itself and steps must be taken to fill up those vacancies, so that pendency of cases may be avoided.

It is saddening to note that as a Lawyer, I saw arrears; as a Judge, I noticed the similar position and even after my retirement, I may see more arrears than the present one, if the situation is not improved.

It should be borne in mind that meritorious persons should be appointed as Judges. Of course, I am not against reservation and while appointing a person against reserved quota, it should be adjudged as to his ability to perform and deserving persons should not be let down at any cost.

I just want to narrate one saddest part of the incident that happened to me just before my elevation in the year 2013. I argued a case before a Judge (I do not want to name the Judge) in February, 2013 and the case was reserved for judgment. One clue I give you that I sat with him on the first day of my sitting as a Judge. Unfortunately, the case did not see its fate till he retired in 2016. When pendency details of reserved cases were called for by the then Chief Justice (who had been subsequently elevated to the Supreme Court), immediately the Judge had departheard all reserved matters, including the case which I argued as an Advocate.

Apart from possessing expertise in their field, if the lawyers are endowed with the trait of presence of mind to crack jokes or be witty, at the appropriate time, of course, something related to the case, the Court hall will be lively instead of being monotonous. Presence of mind will certainly be an added advantage to the lawyers, thereby drawing the attention of the Bench as well the Bar.

When a candidate applied for a post in the Army, the interviewer informed the candidate that a person with suspicious mind, always alert, merciless, ready to attack, acute sense of hearing, detective ability and most importantly having a killer instinct is eligible for the post. Immediately, the candidate asked the interviewer
“Can I send my wife?”

Everyone stated that I am a Leo / Lion (Zodiac Sign) and I am a dynamic person. This is not so, because, my wife Rajeswari (name of Goddess) is sitting on me and controlling.

While concluding my address, I take pleasure in saying that I return to my parent State with an immense sense of satisfaction that I could contribute a little to the State during my short stint as the Chief Justice.

Jai Hind.
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