Supreme Court Is The 'Hindustan' Where Lawyers Come From All Parts Of Country: Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia In Farewell Address

In his farewell address at the ceremonial bench, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, who is due to retire on August 9, expressed that the Supreme Court was the 'Hindustan' in its true essence and inclusivity. 

Justice Dhulia lauded the diversity of the Supreme Court and how, according to him, the Apex Court encapsulated the essence of 'Hindustan'. He expressed : 

"In the morning, my wife asked what it is that you will miss the most - I said I will miss HINDUSTAN, she thought I'm probably already losing my marbles." 

"What 'Hindustan' meant was difficult for anybody to understand. By 'Hindustan' I mean YOU (The Supreme Court Bar). It is perhaps the only Court where cases come from all corners of the country, all states and parts of the country. Lawyers come here from all parts of the country, and this is what I am going to miss the most: that I will not have this Hindustan before me every morning." 

Reflecting upon the novel points of law that he got to see as a judge, Justice Dhulia added that he will miss all the legal discussions, especially during the Constitution Bench hearings. 

Underscoring his crucial learnings as an individual through such legal discussions, he explained that the discussions reminded him of a book his teacher taught him in a Cinema Course at the National Film Archives of India. 

In the book, the protagonist Phillip was sent to Paris to learn painting. When he returned to his village after 5 years, his uncles asked him what he had learnt. He replied that he had learnt to look at a tree. To which his uncle said how was that anything different, he emphasised that 'I have learnt to look at the tree against the sky'

Justice Dhulia said, "It was that, what I saw in your arguments, you had said something that I did not visualise before, which is the best gain I had." 

Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia will retire on August 9. He was a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court before his appointment as the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court in January 2021. He was elevated to the Supreme Court on May 9, 2022.

The ceremonial bench was presided over by CJI BR Gavai along with Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia, K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria. 

Attorney General R Venkataramani, SG Tushar Mehta, SCAORA President Vipin Nair, ASG S Raju, and ASG Aishwarya Bhati also addressed the ceremonial bench. 

Justice Dhulia had dissented in the Karnataka hijab case, observing that girls should not be denied education for wearing the religious scarf. His recent judgment holding that Urdu cannot be seen as a language alien to India, and the interim direction given to the ECI to consider Aadhar, ration and voter cards in the Bihar SIR process were also notable.