Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 16, 2022 at 17:04 IST
Judge UU Lalit of the Apex Court said on Friday that if children can start school at seven in the morning, why couldn’t Judges and lawyers start their day at 9 am?
On Friday, a Bench comprising of Justice Lalit, Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia began their work one hour earlier than usual for the Supreme Court. Next in line to become India’s Chief Justice is Justice Lalit, who stated, “In my view, ideally we should sit at 9 in the morning. I have always said that if our children can go to school at 7 in the morning, then why can’t we come at 9 am?”
The statement was made after senior lawyer MukulRohatgi, who was presenting one of the bail cases, praised the bench at the conclusion of the case’s hearing for sitting earlier than usual time.
I must say that 9.30 am is a more appropriate time to start the courts, he remarked. According to Justice Lalit, if the courts can start early, they can finish early and judges will have more time in the evening to read the case files for the next day.
“The courts can begin working at 9 am, rise at 11.30 am for a break of 30 minutes, and finish their day’s work by 2 pm. Judges will have more time to do more work this way throughout the evening “This arrangement might work when there are only fresh matters and cases that don’t require lengthy hearings, Justice Lalit remarked.
By the end of August, hopefully, more of these arrangements will be seen, said Advocate Rohatgi. Justice Lalit responded, “This is only a capsule,” to this.
On weekdays, the Supreme Court’s judges hear cases from 10:30 am to 4 pm. The Chief Justice of India, NV Ramana, is set to retire on August 26. Justice Lalit will succeed him and serve as CJI till November 8 of this year.