My Colleagues And I Are Attempting To Put In Place A Better System In Supreme Court: CJI Justice Ranjan Gogoi

“We are working in the direction that ‘mentioning’ dies a natural death and not where the Chief Justice puts an end to the practice”, announced freshly-sworn in Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi at the felicitation ceremony hosted by the Supreme Court Bar Association in his honour.

To the surprise of the long que of Advocates-on-Record and other junior counsel assembled to ‘mention’ urgent matters and fresh pleas, appeals and interim applications for early listing, Chief Justice Gogoi had on Wednesday morning done away with this 20-minute long ritual of ‘mentioning’ at 10:30 AM each day before Court 1, except in cases of obvious emergency such as eviction, demolition and death.

“My colleagues and I are attempting to put in place a better system. If the time span between the filing of a case and its listing is decreased, the act of ‘mentioning’ would majorly become redundant. We are contemplating such a system where cases are not dropped from the cause list”, explained the Chief Justice in the evening. He asserted that the time available is short and that the system should be such that maximum output is obtained in the time.

In response to Attorney General K. K. Venugopal’s recommendation that the age of retirement of both High Court and Supreme Court judges be the same and their remuneration be increased manifold, he advanced that unless the dignity the post rightfully deserves is safeguarded, any such measures would not go a long way in attracting able candidates to the judiciary.

He stated that filling up the alarming number of vacancies in the subordinate judiciary would assume priority over the coming months, repeating that for these posts to be assigned the most potent candidates it is indispensable that aura of the office be maintained.

Earlier during the function, Supreme Court Bar Association President and Senior Advocate Vikas Singh had requested the Chief Justice to adopt a lenient approach towards the newer entrants of the legal profession. “I am regarded as a strict person. What I Am cannot change”, declared Chief Justice Gogoi.

Chief Justice Gogoi assured that the many concerns of the members of the bar are not unknown to the bench and that the latter shall strive to tackle all.

In his turn, The AG had repeated his submission made on Monday at the event hosted to commemorate former Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s retirement for the salaries of judges to increased by three to four times. On that occasion, he had pressed for raising the age of retirement of the members of the judiciary while on Wednesday he urged that the ages of retirement of High Court judges be the same as that of the apex court.

The AG voiced his concern over the instance of embezzlement from the welfare fund meant for advocates of a High Court.

Finally, the top law officer of the country expressed his happiness that the new Chief Justice is addressing the issue of Pendency. He articulated his hope that the problem of voluminous crowds congregating in courtrooms would also be looked into.