The Lottery of Life: Notes from the Supreme Court

To a junior counsel, the cause list is a monotony-inducing piece of paper which- on a daily basis- makes them run, stand, wait and wander. To the ordinary litigant waiting in court, the list is life.

IT is July, and the Supreme Court is back.

On the reopening day, as I walked past our homeboy Gandhi (yes, still meditating unaffected like he’s at a Vipassana centre and not the epicentre of all conflicts in the country) and ascended the court stairs, I felt a teeny bit of excitement. It’s been a week and ask anyone at Kent’s or at 4S if you happen to be there tonight- it’s no fun to be at court in this gummy, oppressive heat.

During my short stint at the Supreme Court, I have had special admiration for one special class of ‘counsels’: individual litigants who argue their case in person. Usually, these are retired pensioners whose arrears of salary and benefits have been held up for years (I once saw a middle-aged man appear for his grandfather’s arrears pending since 1947!). In some cases, these may be women with bulky files, constrained to come to the Court because their husbands have filed an application in a pending matrimonial dispute. Very frequently, you will also spot the overzealous PIL-enthusiast, making out a case for removal of a Government notification, or in some cases, the fundamental rights chapter.

But other than the PIL loonies and the publicity hoggers, I have found the ordinary party in person- making out their case at the highest court with no rooting in the law- most fascinating and, dare I say, extremely courageous. My traditionalist colleagues who have high regard for the court and court processes may get miffed at this glorification of recklessness. ‘It’s not that difficult to find a lawyer’, they’d say, ‘one should not take such risks for the sake of the court’s time and their own case’. I quite see their point but I respectfully disagree. A person who has chosen to argue their own case at the Supreme Court perhaps knows our legal system all too well, definitely better than the starry-eyed junior counsel who, as we speak, is in awe of the latest wisecrack their senior let out in the CJI’s court. I also think no litigant chooses to address the Court on her own: in most cases, it is a factor of resource constraints; in some, an understandable distrust of the lawyer’s ability to pinpoint her grievance to the court.

Nevertheless, I enjoy looking at faces of other lawyers in the courtroom when these litigants submit before the court. Their expressions betray a mix of fear, ridicule, contempt and sometimes, second-hand embarrassment. A year ago, I used to think these lawyers are scared that the judge might take offence at some impetuous comment of the litigant. I now think they are scared at the prospect of more people arguing their own cases- at the unlikely yet briefly visible possibility of the hoax of this sheltered profession getting exposed.

Take my word for it, sweating at the Supreme Court is unreal these days. Yesterday, I was so soaked it felt like I had lost half of my body’s water content. The last time I was in so much muck sweat, I was running across the Court’s lush green lawn to catch Mr. Ejaz Maqbool who, while standing next to me at the latest CAA hearings, had inadvertently taken my phone with him (we will keep this story for another day, but I need to mention that Mr. Maqbool very sweetly gave me a signed copy of his book that day, as reparations for the unintentional inconvenience he had caused me). If you have successive matters in Court 2, Court 13 and Court 4 this week, I’d recommend keeping a bottle of water handy while you are running across the corridors or else you may go out like a light.

Post this vacation, most Bench compositions at the Court have changed but the presiding judges have not deviated much from their usual style of disposing matters. All of us love to be in courtrooms where judges run through the list, don’t we! It’s an absolute blessing to finish Court by 1 and be in the chamber/Andhra Bhavan for lunch. Yesterday, while waiting at the back of a courtroom where the bench was taking forever to dispose of a matter (his last for the day), my colleague and I gasped and sighed in frustration. It was a case involving dowry death, and the counsel for the accused tried his best to dissuade the judge from placing reliance on the victim’s dying declaration. Even as everyone rolled their eyes in exasperation, an elderly couple seated in a corner towards the back gazed at the bench with anxious eyes. I could not figure out if they were the parents of the deceased or relatives of the accused. The obvious nervousness, however, told me that the hearing meant everything to them.

Homeboy Gandhi gave us a talisman- it works well when you are overwhelmed, I can tell from experience. I think in moments of annoyance, speaking to, or even just looking at, an ordinary litigant can be a useful talisman to appreciate what is at stake in a courtroom. To us, the cause list is a monotony-inducing piece of paper which- through out the day- makes us run, stand, wait and wander. In a lottery legal system where the fate of a case depends entirely on the bent of the Bench and heaviness of the board and getting a substantive hearing is a win in itself, a litigant’s item number is his hope. On a busy court day, if we pause for a bit and look around in the courtroom, we’d perhaps see that to the old pensioner occupying a corner waiting for his turn, the list is life.

Image Courtesy: Pinterest

Once again, don’t forget to carry your umbrella and a bottle of water to Court tomorrow.