From court assistant to Kerala High Court judge: Justice R Narayana Pisharadi set to demit office

The Kerala High Court on Thursday bid adieu to Justice R Narayana Pisharadi who is due to retire over the course of the Christmas vacation on December 26, 2021..A reference was held on Thursday to felicitate Justice Pisharadi on the occasion.While delivering his address, Chief Justice S Manikumar pointed out that Justice Pisharadi could perhaps be the first and only person in the history of the Kerala High Court, who served as court staff before rising to become a judge of the High Court.Justice Pisharadi had joined Kerala High Court as an assistant before he joined subordinate judiciary as a judicial officer after procuring LLB degree through evening course. He was elevated to the High Court from the District Court."In November 2017, the honourable judges and lawyers who assembled in the this Court witnessed the elevation of a former staff of this Court as a judge of the High Court of Kerala, perhaps the first time in the history of this Court. Justice Pisharadi had joined as an assistant in 1981, pursued his law degree in evening courses and joined the Kerala Judicial services in 1986," the Chief Justice said.Justice Pisharadi was born in 1959 and joined Kerala High Court as an assistant in 1981. He joined Kerala Judicial Service as Judicial Magistrate of the II Class in 1986. He went to serve as Judicial Magistrate of the II Class and I Class, Munsiff, Sub-judge and Chief Judicial Magistrate during the period from 1986 to 2005. He served as MACT and Additional District and Sessions Judge during the period from 2005 to 2015 and later as District Judge at Thalassery and Ernakulam. He was appointed Registrar (Vigilance), High Court of Kerala from in 2016 before being elevated as an Additional Judge of the High Court on November 30, 2017. He was made permanent judge on August 29, 2019. During the farewell today, the Chief Justice as well as Advocate General (AG) Gopalakrishna Kurup K and President of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association advocate Thomas Abraham, highlighted the experience in district judiciary that Justice Pisharadi brought to the Bench.The AG said that even though in his opinion, members of the district judiciary must have a period of compulsory legal practice, justice pisharadi was an exception." Left to myself, I have always been a votary of judges of the district judiciary having a mandatory period of court practice. However, I will always cite your lordship as an exception since during trials and other instances. I came to know of your lordships command over the legal nuances and technicalities and a thorough knowledge of law of evidence that takes seasoned lawyers years of practice to achieve," AG Kurup said.This is especially true in the case of Justice Pisharadi, he said, as in his opinion, the judge was never swayed by media trials, over publicity or public opinion on cases."The verdicts rendered by his lordship were never reflective of such orchestrated amplified noises disguised as clamour for justice. His lordship has always been undeterred by over-publicity much less any publicity that was on the list before his court," the AG said.Advocate Thomas Abraham spoke of Justice Pisharadi's accommodation of lawyers who spoke in their vernacular Malayalam and stressed on the importance of the same"Often we forget that we are constrained to deliberate in a foreign language which is complex in its usage, multiplicity of grammatical and idiomatic specialities. The freedom one gets in using ones vernacular is fully surrendered when using a foreign language and every judge is bound to bear in mind and should never find fault with a person who is found to have difficulty in fully expressing intention of written/oral submissions. I am mentioning this because his lordship magnanimously ignoring errors in submissions if ultimately it is found that such mistakes are trivial in nature," he said.Finally, Justice Pisharadi spoke of his time in the district judiciary and had a few words of advice for its members."I have been part of district judiciary for more than 30 years and I was fortunate to serve at the lowest and highest levels. Hard work has no substitute. Honesty sincerity and hard work will invariably pay dividends. Never make any compromises on this. As an elder brother this is my advice to district judiciary," he emphasised.He stated that he has no tall claims to make but was confident that he rendered justice according to law, unbothered by public opinion and always faithful to the Constitution .He concluded by thanking his fellow judges, members of the Kerala Bar , his staff, family and with Christmas and New Year wishes .