Goodness, Merit  and Integrity Do  Matter Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan Nine new judges, are  to be sworn-in on August 31,2021, by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana. One of them is a good friend- Justice M M Sundresh. He was marked out as one for the pulpit, even as a persuasive practitioner . Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Roman emperors, and a philosopher king, famously said, “ Good is great. Trust goodness as

Goodness, Merit  and Integrity Do  Matter

Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

 

 

 

Nine new judges, are  to be sworn-in on August 31,2021, by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana. One of them is a good friend- Justice M M Sundresh. He was marked out as one for the pulpit, even as a persuasive practitioner .

 

Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Roman emperors, and a philosopher king, famously said, “ Good is great. Trust goodness as virtue. Rest follow as day follows night”. Virtue, according to Seneca, the philosopher playwright, orator was about how you lead your life.

 

Virtue was about living according to reason.Even as one  was tucking into the trilogy of Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy and Stillness is the Key, authored by the young Ryan Holliday, a drop out  at  all 19 years, one was  proudly texting Sundresh, to be politically correct, Justice Sundresh, a congratulatory message. Goodness is not a lost Virtue. And it matters, after all.

 

Does the preamble belong here? It does and for good reasons. Those of us who had the privilege  of being  friends with him in the Bar, saw him seamlessly assume office, as judge of a constitutional court,with no airs about him . He remained grounded. As if a practitioner of Stoicism of the Marcus Aurelius  and Seneca genre.An ever smiling visage added to the ‘energetic tranquility’  that Justice V R Krishna Iyer wanted a judge to be imbued with.

 

C P Ramasamy Aiyar refused to bite the bullet to become a judge, “I’d rather be on this side and speak a little bit of non sense than be compelled to hear more of it from it from above”. ‘A lawyer can pick and choose his clients, causes and Judges for appearance. Alas, a judge can’t ‘, said Justice Antonin Scalia. True.

 

One had rarely seen MMSJ lose his cool. May be hid it. May be he WAS a STOIC. On the bench, he was a pleasure to appear before.’Quick on the uptake and zeroed in on the core’ as Justice Cardozo wanted a judge to be. Whether he came ‘fully read or oblivious to what the cause was about, he was  always courteous to hear the lawyer’ as Nani Palkhivala said of Chief Justice M C Chagla. ‘He dismissed the cause. Never the counsel’ said Motilal Setalvad, of Chagla.

 

Just a couple of weeks back, one was privy to the ‘niceness’ of Justice Sundresh. It was an outrageous case. ‘A lingering litigation lasting two decades’ as the judge himself put it. Yet, he did not  ‘cut the counsel’, as most are prone to. He ‘let the advocate have his heartfelt say’ as Lord Denning was prone to . No case was made out. Or could be.

 

Politely, Justice Sundresh prodded , “Counsel, can we take it  that you have urged all that you wanted to say. More so, when your client is also on  the Virtual platform. We appreciate the sensitivities. But please do worry for the pendency as a Pandemic ”. He threw subtle hints to wind up. Only then,  the counsel quietened  down and enabled  the Bench to dictate the dismissal. It was a  ‘two minute dismissal case’ as a practising friend texted me.

 

Justice Sundresh is a learned man. His exposition on the saintly Avvayyar, was a class act. And he is never verbose in his verdicts . He is always crisp and clear. Most of his orders got the seal of approval from the top court, as he ‘reasoned his decisions, as if with an arithmetical tool’ as Justice Louis Brandeis was said to. One feels it would be presumptuous to pick out from his legion of orders, to identify him in it. Each of them was drawn to scale. Even  the short orders,he dictated in a jiffy.

 

For the practitioners, he was a godsend.And even to the litigants. He had no harsh word to say. For those who valued time, his sharpness meant that  one did not need to strive hard. For those who loved to slog, he was not impatient. Being a cricket mad judge, he knew the importance of defence and letting deliveries go by, to bide  his time. The beauty of his decision making  was that ‘he made a genuine attempt to convince everyone who appeared before him that the facts and law did the trick and not the court’, as a brother judge on the bench, put it once.

 

To illustrate, recently, on the digital plank, in a matrimonial lis, both parties were present and heard out.  He gave them both long ropes and never hustled them. He tried his darnedest to ‘reconcile the irreconcilable defences’ as he called them. Yet, he understood the emotions behind the stances. Politely and persuasively he put them on notice what the orders ought to be. Or could be. Both sides went away knowing that they were not in for a surprise or a shock. Satisfied, they may not be. But fully aware that they had their day and were ‘heard’.

 

Erudite he is.Surely not hotheaded. Simple,Soft,Suave and Sophisticated, a ruthless wonder. A trained and well informed judge.A calm composure and total absence of abrasiveness endear  him.  The choice of The Nine, and among them,  my friend Justice M M Sundresh, tells us that  the Collegium is not after all a beast,  it is said to have become.

 

Only a honest and transparent team could have picked this lot, as  integrity and merit get its due. And these are not long lost faculties in these maddeningly moral deficit climes. Honesty, integrity allied with merit make a magic potion, and it is inspiring to see it happen.

 

Justice M M Sundresh would be a perfect illustration  of what those who appear before this learned judge, are sure to experience.With a permanent Hybrid Platform,  possibly in place, it may not all be Tamil Nadu’s loss to become Delhi’s/India’s gain/pride.

 

( Practising advocate and author of Constitution and its Making-Musings,Anecdotes,Episodes, OakBridge)

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