Judges should not proceed on leave unnecessarily like government servants: Justice MR Shah

Judicial officers should not conduct themselves like government employees and proceed on leave unnecessarily, Supreme Court judge Justice MR Shah said on Wednesday. .Justice Shah requested that the judges of the Gujarat High Court, who are administrative judges of districts assigned to them, should ensure that no judicial officer proceeds on leave unnecessarily.The judge said that the judicial officers must understand that they are "selected by God" to serve the country. "You (HC judges) must make them understand that they aren't government employees that they will go on leaves unnecessarily. It is not like your leaves will lapse so you should go on leave. In fact, you should understand that you are selected by God to serve this nation, to serve the citizens. So you should do your work properly," the judge underscored. Justice Shah was virtually inaugurating live streaming of the district courts in Gujarat and also launching a separate portal for judicial officers in the State, which would facilitate them to apply for leaves and also assess their performance. "When I was here at Gujarat High Court, I used to get several applications for leave. But even before I could allow or reject the applications, the judicial officer would already go on leave. This I felt was unfair. But with this new portal in place, I request all the brother judges to ensure that these judicial officers don't go on leaves unnecessarily," Justice Shah said. .The judge also praised the Gujarat High Court for being a pioneer in taking new initiatives especially for live streaming court proceedings. He said that the State has always been 'number 1' in all the fields. "Gujarat, I am proud to say that has always shown to be vibrancy and has remained vibrant. It is always number one in every field right from live court proceedings and now the district judiciary. No High Court and no State in the entire country have yet started live streaming of all the courts in the State. With pride, I am saying that I belong to a High Court which is vibrant," the judge said. .The judge emphasized that this is an era of transparency and that all the citizens have the right to know what is happening in the courts."Now all judicial officers at district levels will have to bear in mind that you are being watched by the people, for whom our system is. Our system is meant for the common man. You have to show the performance; if you perform the system will survive. It is said society has to change with time. Live streaming of courts to bring in more transparency in justice delivery system has been a dream of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and today his dreams are being fulfilled," the judge observed. .On a lighter vein, he added that judicial officers would now have to visit salons and parlour as they also need to look good on screen. "You will now have to go to parlours. But on a serious note, what is important is not how you look or how you appear on the screen but how you deliver justice and how you decide a case," the judge added. .Also present at the event was Justice JB Pardiwala, who stressed on the need to go paperless even on the administrative side. The first step in this regard would be the new portal for judicial officers of Gujarat District Judiciary, he said."Ultimately we all are doing this only for the people. Courts in a democracy do not belong to lawyers or judges but to the citizens. Consumers of justice look upon the judicial officers for justice. This will bring in more transparency and boost the morale of the judicial officers and also the stakeholders of the justice delivery system," he said. .Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Aravind Kumar, while speaking at the event, informed that the Gujarat High Court's YouTube channel has been subscribed by over 1.18 lakh users and the videos on the channel have garnered over 1. 72 crore views."This is a new milestone for our High Court. I would have to say that State funding has never been a hindrance for our initiatives. The judicial officers portal would show communication between registrars and the judges, their property details etc. Performance assessment, statistics of pending cases etc would also be integrated and reflected on this site," CJ Kumar said.