'Judges Work Seven Days A Week': CJI DY Chandrachud On Criticism About Court Vacations

“All of us are criticized for the vacations we have. They all say, 'inko chutti bahut jyada milti h'. People don't understand that judges work all seven days of the week. Our district judges work on every single day, even on Saturdays and Sundays they have to do legal aid camps or they have to do other administrative work,” CJI Chandrachud said.

CJI added that he has urged the judges of the Supreme Court to disclose the lectures and conferences they attend on the weekends so that they can be added to the Supreme Court Chronicles and made available to the general public.

He also said that it is important for people to know what the judges are doing, more so, when they are continuously being watched by the public at large.

“Live streaming of cases on YouTube puts a new burden on us. In the earlier years, what we said in the court was only seen and heard by 50 people or 100 people present in the court. Now what you say or hear in the court is relayed to the entire nation and beyond.”

“So that places a very great burden on the judges as to what you speak. To be very careful in off-the-cuff remarks. Because everything that is said by us can be interpreted and misinterpreted and is being interpreted and misinterpreted constantly. So it is important for the judges to understand what the new demand of the system pace upon them,” he added.

Stressing the need for judges to adapt to technology, CJI said

“Technology is not just a new fangle idea of this Chief Justice who has an interest in technology. What is the idea behind technology as part of the justice delivery mechanism. The idea of doing this in a more technology-savvy way is to first make us more efficient as judges, but most importantly to take the work that we do to the live of our citizens. And technology is a very key instrument in ensuring that the work which we does not remain aloof from the community, but takes it right to the heart of the community.”

He pointed out that the litigant who comes to court for the acquisition of a small piece of land should not be deprived of justice merely because he has no access to an Android phone or a smartphone. CJI emphasized that the idea behind setting up e-seva Kendra is to ensure that all the services under the e-courts project are available to every citizen and that no one suffers because of the digital divide.

“By creating the space for hybrid hearing, we have allowed women to participate in an equal measure in the workforce of the legal profession and the bar.”

In the ceremony, it was disclosed that approximately 1 crore judicial files containing more than 50 crore pages were required to be digitized. More than 48.41 crore pages/ images of more than 71 lakh files have been already done. Physical records of more than 70.20 lakh files have been destroyed to make sitting space in section offices. It was also disclosed that the digitization project has been extended to all district courts in the state.