Chief Justice of Madras High Court Indira Banerjee on Saturday urged judicial officers to ensure quality of justice even while expediting cases.
Speaking at a function after honouring senior lawyers, who have completed 50 years of service, she said that the cases should be disposed in an expeditious manner. Justice delayed is justice denied. If cases were dragged for long, people would not approach the courts. Hence, it was important to dispose long pending cases, mainly criminal, which were more than five years old, in a speedy manner. However, the High Court was not just insisting on speedy disposal alone and judicial officers should ensure quality also, she said.
“We always tell the judicial officers that their judgements should speak for themselves. A judge has no opportunity to explain why and what made him to arrive at a particular decision. The opportunity is only through the judgements that the litigants know and appeal court knows on what prompted the judge to arrive at the judgement,” Justice Banerjee said. She said justice delivery was not a one way process. Judges alone are not responsible for justice delivery. Lawyers had an important role in it. Some of the best judgements were possible because of the quality of the (arguments of) members of the Bar. Hence, Bar members, mainly juniors, should read the law well so as to assist judges in delivering quality judgements, she pointed out.
While stating that she had learnt a lot from her seniors when she was practising law in Calcutta , Justice Banerjee added that junior members should emulate best examples from seniors and they in turn should guide the juniors to keep the tradition of the Bar.
While asking the Tiruchi District Judge to take steps on the grievances expressed by the Tiruchi Bar Association, she said additional space in the district court should be given to accommodate more lawyers. Similarly, there was a need for providing exclusive space for women members for their privacy.
Justices M. Govindaraj and G. Jayachandran, Judges, Madras High Court, S. Kumaraguru, Principal District Judge, Tiruchi, K. Pannirselvan, president, Tiruchi Bar Association and others participated.
Earlier, Chief Justice Banerjee inaugurated the renovated library building at the Tiruchi Bar Association.
