At an age when youngsters are either studying or just beginning their careers, she was already a mother of two school-going children and a practising lawyer. She always aspired to be a doctor or a teacher, but she never realized that one day fate would make her Vidarbha’s first woman high court judge.
In her illustrious career spanning over three and half decades in the legal field, justice
Vasanti Naik not only made a mark for herself, but also set trends for others to follow. After disposing of a whopping 50,000 plus verdicts, including many landmark ones, she finally retired this month. In her long tenure, Naik, who has the illustrious VR Manohar (former advocate general) as her father and, Shashank (ICC chairman) and Sunil (senior counsel) as brothers, created a niche in the legal field. Though she was mainly assigned civil and constitutional matters, she was entrusted with criminal cases towards the end of her career, which she dealt with aplomb and won many accolades. She was also associated with the Maharashtra Law Journal and the All India Reporter for seven years in the 1980s and 90s.
In an exclusive interview with TOI, she speaks on various issues pertaining to the judiciary and society.
Q. Let’s begin from your entry into this profession.
A. After completion of schooling from Mount Carmel, I studied for a year in Shivaji Science. Though I secured good marks to get admission to GMCH Nagpur, I got married at an early age. Frankly, I never aspired to become a lawyer, but my mother persuaded me to take further education. I pursued masters in history and later completed LLB from Dr Ambedkar Law College. Even then I wasn’t sure of entering the legal profession which I thought was a difficult one. I just started arguing cases entrusted by my father. But, subsequently, I grew in confidence. Simultaneously, I started teaching at Ambedkar college, which I continued for over a decade.
Q. Being from a family of legal luminaries, there must have been a lot of pressure?
A. There was none, neither from our parents nor from the legal fraternity. However, I consider myself lucky to have received able guidance from my father and support from my brothers.
Q. Is it difficult for women to enter the legal field?
A. Though their acceptance was less, I never faced any difficulty at that time. When I started practising in December 1981, there used to be around half a dozen women in the HC. But I am happy to see that the situation has completely changed now. Some of them are also working as government lawyers and doing extremely well. In recent times, even in judicial services over 50% are recruits are women. I’ve a soft corner towards women and government lawyers, who I think had to face a lot of adversities.
Q. Your views about the long vacations in courts which people didn’t approve.
A. I know that people want HC judges who sit for 210 days in courts to work more but they don’t understand the difficulties associated with the profession. Our work starts from the morning where they read the cases that are going to be heard in their courts. In evening, they’re busy with the dictations of judgements. The lawyer’s job is even more hectic and stressful. Their day starts in the morning for reading cases and then they need to stay in courts till the evening. They then attend their offices for interacting with clients and drafting cases, and also preparing for arguments. Both judges and lawyers are humans, after all.
Q. You are well known for dealing with family disputes.
A. My experience with working as a lawyer in family court helped me, but I used to love all types of cases and worked hard to deal with them. I used to expedite family disputes as they concerned human lives and any delay may affect future plans. If the spouses wanted to separate and get remarried or start new families, it’s not possible after a certain age. So, I used to give priority to such cases. But family disputes are of course emotional matters and people should try to maintain their families by showing little maturity and doing adjustments. They must understand that when a couple is separated, it adversely affects the society, particularly the children. If couples continue to separate for petty reasons, the family system would collapse one day.
Q. What are your plans now?
A. I am very clear that I don’t want full-fledged assignments like being on tribunals. I would however love to do arbitration work and contribute my services for a social cause. I also love cooking and performing household chores, which I think are big stress busters. During my entire life, I have never had any house-help and used to cook myself all the time.
