JUSTICE Studious had done all the hard work expected of an additional judge who gets appointed on merit.
Although he was a Bombay-based designated ‘senior advocate’ prior to his elevation, he spent those ‘probation’ years at Nagpur as that was his assigned headquarters.
As a judge, Studious impressed all the senior judges with his painstaking research and sustained efforts to assist them while performing his duties as a junior judge on division Benches.
In those pre-computer days of printed law reports, digests, manuals and commentaries, it was not easy for judges to engage in independent in-depth research. They relied primarily on the lawyers on both sides of every adversarial matter to enlighten them with whatever inputs they could provide and assistance they could render.
Justice Studious impressed the Chief (Justice) when he came for a brief visiting stint at Nagpur. Soon after being confirmed as a permanent judge of the Bombay High Court, Justice Studious was brought by the Chief to the principal seat at Bombay.
Justice Studious would spend a lot of time in the judges library poring over rare old books as well as relevant new ones. The Chief was impressed by his studious nature. Justice Studious discovered that most of the great classics of law had not been borrowed for decades by any of his brethren.
Yet, as he sat doing research, he could observe a steady flow of personal assistants of his brethren coming with requisition slips to give to the librarian. One day, his curiosity got the better of him and he asked the librarian what kind of books his brethren were interested in reading.
The librarian told him candidly that the great demand was for magazines such as Stardust, Savvy and Femina and for romantic bestsellers and thrillers. Justice Studious was surprised that there were no takers for any law-related publications. The competition among the judges was for the latest issues of the ‘movie mags’.
The principle of first come, first served was not followed in the judges library when it came to taking these ‘glossies’ home. Seniority triumphed! Some senior judge in the past had decided during his stint as a ‘library judge’ that the budget of the judges library would be better utilised in purchasing a variety of general-entertainment magazines rather than just purchasing several copies of the standard law reports.
That path-breaking decision was treated as a binding precedent by all enlightened judges who followed in his footsteps. It was so much better to get the judges library to purchase the books and magazines which the judges' families required than to selfishly purchase them only for one's personal use.
Thus, when a milord's son was preparing for the Union Public Service Commission prelims, it was the judges library that provided copies of Competition Success Review!
“Why not improve everyone's general knowledge?” was the noble thought behind such selfless acquisitions. Justice Studious soon discovered that none of the latest law books available with law booksellers that were worth buying were in the judges library but an assortment of bestsellers had accumulated over the years.
When he mentioned this to the Chief, he was told that the memsahibs at home would never tolerate diversion of funds by the milords from the entertaining showbiz mags to the boring legal tomes.
Chief: “Why don't you utilise the allowance available to every High Court judge to purchase law books of his choice?"
Studious: “Is there such an allowance? No one told me about it. I shall surely find out.”
With great difficulty, Justice Studious found the circular issued pre-Independence by some British Chief sanctioning ₹50 per annum to every high court judge to purchase ‘law books of his choice’.
This had been revised upwardly from time to time till the early 1970s to ₹500 but there had been no further revisions since then. Apparently, everyone had forgotten that any such circular existed.
Justice Studious decided to raise this issue in the next full court meeting of all the honourable milords and get the much needed revision approved. Such meetings used to be held physically in those days just before the vacations were due to start. Milords from the Benches of the Bombay High Court from Aurangabad, Nagpur and Goa would descend upon Bombay for such meetings.
When the issue raised by Justice Studious to increase the allowance from ₹500 per judge per annum to purchase law books to ₹5,000 per judge per annum was taken up for discussion there were peals of laughter from many milords.
Senior milords came up with quips like:
“You want us to join law college again?”
“We don't need to read any law books now.”
“There are better ways to spend evenings.”
“What we lay down is the law.”
Studious did not know how to respond to such remarks as none of the senior milords took the matter seriously. One senior milord declared that he had stopped reading law books after he passed his LLB exam and stopped reading law reports after elevation!
His argument was that as long as one had read the standard texts and the leading cases till 1967, nothing more was required as whatever followed did not lay down anything new! Everything was merely regurgitation and repetition!
But the Chief, sensing that Justice Studious was looking very dejected, said: “Let us raise the allowance to ₹1,500 and move on to the next item on our agenda.”
It was no surprise, therefore, that none of the judges except Justice Studious availed of this ‘library allowance’. In ₹1,500, he could buy only three or four good books in those days.
After narrating this experience to me, Justice Studious said: “I wonder if ₹1,500 would be enough to buy even one decent treatise now!”
And I wondered if that so-called ‘library allowance’ was ever utilised by any milord after Justice Studious retired.