Much is written about and spoken of the burden on our courts. The sheer backlog of cases that have piled up over years; the number of cases a judge has to handle because there aren’t enough judges; the volumes of documents he has to take home to read even on weekends, etc.
But what do we make of the last day in office of Cyriac Joseph, the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court, who has been elevated as a judge in the Supreme Court of India?
In an open court that lasted 70 minutes from 12.30 pm to 1.40 pm on 2 July, chief justice Joseph sat with nine different benches and pronounced judgments on 56 cases. This translates into one judgment every 1.25 minutes or 85 seconds, assuming no time was lost between any two judgments and any two benches.
Only one pronouncement had to be held back to give the respondents time.
Admittedly, many if not all of the judgments had been reserved—the order on the Kannada policy of the State Government in unaided schools, for instance, had been pending for over a year-and-a-half—and it is quite possible that some of the judgments were not so weighty as to detain the court and the learned judge any longer.
And by clearing his lot, the outgoing chief justice has ensured that the courts and the litigants do not have to go through the 56 cases all over once again.
Still, while Justice Joseph was carving himself a place in the legal history books for the most judgements pronounced in a day, is the ordinary litigant wrong in wondering whether the courts would be so overburdened if judges didn’t have to wait till the last day before the last word was said on their cases?
schools decision is the most pathetic decision i have heard in a long time.
I think it is better if judges are elevated or retire for SPEEDY JUSTICE however flawed it may be. It is said that the PROCESS OF JUSTICE IS THE REAL PUNISHMENT IN INDIA.
Agreed that Justice delayed is Justice denied. The present state of affairs in the judiciary is not satisfactory. Lakhs and lakhs of cases are still pending. It takes years for the dispensation of justice. Corruption is rampant. Not a single soul has been convicted in the cases involving the notorious Gujarat 2002 genocide. No one has been slammed with life imprisonment in the cases involving the mass massacres of Gujarat 2002 genocide. There is no two opinion about it.
But still…..
But still…..
Judgment in the time span of less than 85 seconds…!
It is bad.
I like the caption you have given.
”Even Maggi noodles takes 2 full minutes to make”
It sums up all.
No extra comments needed.
Well done.
Only lawyers can be judges, majority of the bright students become engineers, doctor etc. The remaining filtrate go on to become lawyers.
How then can you expect these Judges to be the extraordinary?
I am curious to see the SSLC and PU marksheet of these Judges. Some day
I will use RTI.
Can anybody guess?
well written article, nice caption to sum it all. its really scary to think if even 10% of all the judges in India are like this guy, wat is the state of affair…
sorry to say….this CJ has been far less impressive than some of the predecessors, while he makes some stupid ‘judgements’…crazy jack…
Your caption is enough :
the inside story is on 2 nd he attended send off function by High court, 3rd he has left to Kerala by helicopter to receive a felicitation by Christian missioniries on 3rd night he is back in bangalore again 4th he is going to Dhrwar for inaguration of Circuit bench.back in bangalore on 5th to proceed to delhi.BUSY MAN
“Aae kaa nauTanki hai bhai..!” (as Lalu might say)
Why did the justice wait as long as he did to perform this miracle?
Basically I see these as the important take-away points related to Kannada in primary education:
1. The pvt. schools had agreed to teach in Kannada medium, and now they dont want to abide by that.
1a. And our revered judiciary has favoured this law-breaking act of the seats of education in our society.
2. The judiciary is not considered to be expert in academics/education, especially so at the primary level – which in essence is supposed to be a govt’s jurisdiction.
2a. The judiciary has, in its judgement, talked about education and academics as though it is indeed an expert there. “Let the children (and their parents) choose the language in which they want to study” –
2b. What crap!? I’d say, those judges should be born judges to not imagine that a child is not someone you can rest the decision process of education upon! Just shows how serious the judiciary has taken education to be in a civilized society. And we’re to abide by its ruling, eh?! (Hitler was probably better, I guess!)
3. The court ruled saying govt. and aided schools should teach in Kannada medium until class-5, whereas pvt. schools can go free, and teach in English medium.
3a. If the judiciary were to think English is better indeed, so much for equality in schooling, eh? Govt. school kids are destined to be deprived of good education in that case! (only an example)
3b. If the jud. thought choice should rest with children, why then did it limit its thought process to English. China, speaking chinese, is going to dominate the market tomorrow, and “our kids” will have to learn Chinese. So being future-proof, our judiciary should have actually “protected” our kids by recommending them Chinese as another alternative, and just ruled out Kannada from the board altogether!
3c. What with Hindi being imposed left-right-center in India, our high-court-to-supreme(Delhi)-court judge will perhaps soon recommend Hindi as the “other” language that kids in Karnataka should learn – anyway, English will help them become slaves to the entire world (like most of us), and Hindi, can make the remaining few, slaves to their Hindi speaking (national) masters. After all, kids in Karnataka are destined to be that – is what the judgement seems to be spelling out.
(Editor, please dont change my words here and alter the message I want to convey)
Overall in this case the jud. has proven to be unfit to play a responsible role in these cases, and I think it actually needn’t have flexed its muscles to this extent at all. Because I believe that primary education is something that needs to be legislated upon a people. There cant be anarchy (in the case of choice!) at such a primary and important level which is going to decide how its future citizens are going to be shaped.
Of course its another story where some people’s kids are destined (by parents) to be citizens of lands far off. We were not talking about them here, I presumed. Correct me if I was wrong!!
I had started to think that the judiciary was our last bastion of hope. Foolish me.
bloody sham, end of the day
@ T Azeez Luthfullah
Why not we discuss on Kashmir, instead of Gujrat?
@ bengaluru manja
You spilled the beans. Now we know why the judgement was anti-Kannada.
Only aspect of this piece I found interesting was the title. It met the purpose it was meant for – catching your attention.
Otherwise I found everything else full of gas nothing else.
How many of the worthies who commented on this article are familiar with court proceedings? How many have attended court or sat through a day and watched the proceedings? If I go by the above comments, none including the writer of the piece. The writer makes it appear as if the judge just delivered the judgements on issues just on the spur of the moment, and the judgements are delivered in that fashion only.
I would appreciate the CJ for ensuring that the cases did not go for a prolonged re-hearing because he ceased to be part of the bench hearing the case. He must have spent days writing the judgements, which he pronounced on that day.
Folks have some sense. It is easy throwing mud on others.
I would like to know out of the 13 worthies above how many have studied in Kannada medium up to SSC? How many have enrolled their siblings/children in Kannada Medium Schools?
Let me tell you, I have studied in Kannada Medium up to SSC.
For my horror, I have found that those vehemently arguing for Kannada medium for all cant speak on sentence without bringing in English words, even where it is not necessary.
I have found, in my home town, Kannada medium schools closing because no parents are enrolling their children there. And those were private schools and not Govt run ones. Finally, those schools with all their infrastructure, had to beg Government to permit them to change medium.
It is not the laws that make children go to Kannada School. It is parents lime you and me. Let us reform ourselves before we demand implementation of some of our arm chair spawn ideals. Practice before we preach.
@ Bimbuli
I am not one of the ” 13 worthies” who commented on this piece…but have some questions and comments
Sure the CJI must have spent considerable time before coming to a judgment on Kannada issue and other two dozen issues..point here is why did the CJI wait for the last day to pronouce the judgments ? Why did he not dispose of the cases as and when he was ready ? Obviously he dint come to a conclusion on all cases just a week before he moved on…
By delaying the annoucment of judgment – even by a day, week or month – CJI has delayed justice to the parties concerned.
On the Kannada a medium of instruction issue…an imp point here to note is that most schools got permission to start the schools saying they will have Kannada as medium of instruction. They just went ahead and abondoned that once they got permission. Thats blatantly illegal..and something, i understand, CJI seem to have approved.
The CJI seemed to chasing a record that rendering rendering…
@Andy
What CJI has delivered on the last day are judgements of benches and not his single judge judgements, in which instances the timelines can be set by him alone. In bench judgements, the other members of the bench too have to be ready with their judgements.
What CJI has done is perhaps muchmore than a day or week or month Andy is talking about. He has avoided re-hearing by a new bench which may take months or years too.
I would rather appreciate his considered action of avoiding re-hearing by ensuring that most of the benches arrived and delivered their judgements at least on his last day in office at Karnataka high court.
As regards the Kannada Issue, I believe the judgement tackled the larger issue of the right of the parents to decide on what their children learn.
Some/Many schools violating the sanction of Government of Kannada Schools is and admininistrative issue, which Governments of the day failed to tackle properly ever since 1994 who failed to follow up their orders and slept over it for monetary or other gains. You cant suddenly wake up and play with the schooling of thousands of children because you were inept with your job. What I find most of the time is all those who profess over schooling in Kannada do “Helodu Shastra, Ikkodu Gala”.
When will people see through the machinations of politicians, who say Kannada should be medium of instruction and open English medium schools under Education Trusts sponsored by them?
On the Medium of instruction row,,
Here is a different perspective:
http://karnatique.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-medium-of-instruction-ruckus.html
KANNADA MATHADODU KANNADA BARIYODU EEGA THUMBA KASHTADA VICHARA ELLARU ANGLA BHASHEGE MANYATHE KODTHRE KANNDA BHAHALA PADAGALIGE ARTHA NE GOTTILLA ADAKKE PRATHMIKA SHIKSHANA KANNADALLE AAGABEKU 5NE TARAGATHI VARAGE ADRU