February 7, 2014

Quality of Arguments in Supreme Court of India

Once the former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Santosh Hegde said something like this during hearing of a case.

"You say that our judgements are not very good. But our judgements depend on what you argue before us. We decide your arguments. If arguments you make are of poor quality, our judgements will also be of poor quality." Then the Judge further explained "Garbage In - Garbage out" principle. If input is of poor quality, the output shall be of poor quality.

Now consider this in the light of what I overheard two days ago.

A senior advocate was discussing a case with his instructing advocate. He said smilingly, "Here, we are concerned only with money."

The sentence appeared to have double meaning. First meaning was, in that case to be argued, the only question was how much money was to be paid.

Second meaning of this sentence need not be spelled our here. It is not in good taste.

Short term goals of Senior Advocates appear to have eclipsed their long term goals of strengthening Supreme Court of India. 

-----

In Supreme Court Bar, one old timer lawyer told me this story about former Supreme Court Judge Justice A.N.Ray (around 1955)

When some important judgement was to be given, some days before, he would ask his driver to drive him at some isolated place like a river or lake. There he would sit for few hours and think about the judgement which he would write and it's implication on future generation.

To read his judgements are refreshing, even after so many many years.

Haresh Raichura
1181