Chief Justice of India continues ......

Law was to him, as it should be to every judge, a human and a social institution, a means to
achieve social ends and not an end by itself. This human element always loomed large in his pronouncements as a Judge.

“We have met today to give him a farewell and most hearty farewell we would give him. He retires from the Bench with the best wishes of his friends and colleagues, with his faculties unimpaired and capacity for work undiminished, and although we wonder how a life of rest would suit at all his vivacious temperament and active habits, we wish him long years of health, happiness and comfort.” In reply I said in part:

“Rastrapatiji, My Lord Chief Justice-designate, my hosts and gentlemen:

For the affectionate and hearty farewell, and for the delicious feed that you have given me I am indeed deeply grateful.

“My Lord the Chief Justice-designate has praised me to the skies. He has, like a very good, host, heaped praises on me overlooking my failings and shortcomings, though he has hinted in a very modest way to some of them.

I have never claimed to be an ideal judge. All the virtues that one reads and which have been written by various writers about judges, I do not claim to posses. One of my failings which perhaps is well known, is that I did not possess to that degree the virtue of patience which all judges are supposeto possess. Not that I have not tried to possess it. I have on occasions done my best to acquire it, but with no success. The last effort that I made was to imitate a brother Judge of mine who is a model of patience. His modus operandi was simple. When he was tired of a bad argument and lost patience with the counsel, he would just shut his eyes and lean back in his chair, no matter for what length of time.

To be continued...