Kerala High Court bids farewell to Justice Sunil Thomas and Justice K Haripal set to demit office in May 2022

The Kerala High Court on Friday held a reference to honour Justices Sunil Thomas and K Haripal who are set to demit office on May 10 and 9 respectively..Justice Sunil Thomas was born on May 10, 1960 at Tripunithura in Ernakulam District. After he completed schooling in Rajagiri High School, Kalamassery and got his bachelor's degree from from St.Albert's College, Ernakulam, he obtained a law degree from Maharaja's Government Law College, Ernakulam. Later, he also completed his LLM from Cochin University, Ernakulam. Justice Thomas enrolled as an advocate on December 11, 1983 and started practicing mainly in civil and labour laws. From 2001 to 2015, he served as District Judge in the Kerala judiciary. From 2007 to 2014, he held the post of Registrar of Supreme Court from 2007 to 2014. Sworn in as additional judge of the High Court of Kerala on April 10, 2015, he was later made a permanent judge of the Court with effect from April 5, 2017..Justice K Haripal was born on May 9, 1960 in Paipad, Changanacherry in Kottayam district. After completing his schooling at the Government Muslim LP School, Paipad and NSS High School, Kunnamthanam, he completed a degree in Economics from Mar Thoma College, Thiruvalla. He later joined the High Court Service as an Assistant in 1981. After completing his LLB from Government Law College, Ernakulam, he joined the judicial service in 1987 as Judicial Second Class Magistrate and was promoted as Judicial First Class Magistrate in 1990. He was selected as a Munsiff in 1991 and worked in this post for 11 years until he was promoted as Sub Judge/Chief Judicial Magistrate in 2002. Justice Haripal was selected as a District and Sessions Judge in 2005 and worked as Registrar at Kerala Lok Ayukta for one year. He also worked as Additional District Judge in Ernakulam, Thrissur and Alappuzha. The worked as Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Thrissur, District Judge, Kavaratti and Thiruvananthapuram. He worked as Chairman of the Administrative Committee of the Sree Padmanabaha Swamy Temple. In January 2018, he was appointed as the Registrar (Subordinate Judiciary) on and later in November the same year as the Registrar General.On May 25, 2020, he was elevated as an additional judge of the Kerala High Court and made a permanent judge of the court on September 27, 2021. .Speaking at the event, Advocate General for Kerala, K Gopalakrishna Kurup thanked Chief Justice S Manikumar, the other judges of the High Court and the High Court Registry for holding a full court reference before the Court breaks for vacation."This reference is a tad early about a month in advance, but their lordships deserve a send-off in the glare and pomp of a fully functional court," he said.He went on to note that in Krishna Swamy v Union of India, the Supreme Court had held that the holder of office of the judge of the Supreme Court or the High Court should be above the conduct of ordinary mortals of the society. With regard to the two judges demitting office in May, he said, "Having put in more than 3.5 decades of practice as a lawyer of this court and as AG of the state, I can without an iota doubt and bereft of any fear whatsoever of my words amounting to any sort of flattery, emphatically endorse that the standards that have been set forth by their lordships in the matter of their judicial conduct has been exemplary", he said..Chief Justice S Manikumar, in his address, spoke of the various landmark judgments rendered by both the judges during their tenures.""The legacy sometimes continues and in the case of Justice Sunil Thomas, the legacy is continuing in the form of his son also joining the profession. His father Justice Sunil Thomas enrolled himself in 1983, the same year that I enrolled as a lawyer... He served as registrar of the Supreme Court for 7 years, perhaps the longest period held by any Registrar in the entire country. He worked under 4 Chief Justices of India. This shows his wonderful administrative capacity," the Chief Justice said about Justice Sunil Thomas.Justice Haripal, the Chief Justice said, has a unique distinction in the court since it is the second time in the history of the Kerala High Court that a former staff of the court was elevated as a judge, after Justice R Narayana Pisharadi.Before parting, the Chief Justice quoted the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you'll be in my heart."