Chief Justice of India Justice J.S. Khehar, on Friday, revealed his sensitive side, recalling that the case dearest to him was not one amongst the high-profile cases that he fought as a lawyer, but that of a retired employee of the Haryana Roadways who was struggling to make ends meet, was abandoned by his family, and was fighting to get pension from his former employer.
Addressing a gathering of lawyers in Delhi, Khehar said that his extended family, which had come from abroad to attend his oath-taking ceremony earlier this month, asked him which was his best case.
“I have represented judges in the Supreme Court. I have represented a Supreme Court judge in an impeachment proceeding. But I narrated to them the case I loved the most. It was about a very humble person. It dated back to around 20-25 years,” he said.
(File) Chief Justice of India J.S.Khehar
The matter, Khehar said, pertained to Haryana roadways. It was about employees with provident fund, who had retired, and the government had then introduced pension. The question was whether they were entitled to the new pension.
“A gentleman walked into my office. He had to sign papers pertaining to the case. I asked him how does he lead his life. He said he lives on his farm land. He said his children do not look after him.
He told me he got Rs 70 as pension per month,” Khehar recalled.
Khehar said he asked him what can a person eat on Rs 70 a month. He said he bought wheat flour, and then took onion or some other vegetable from a neighbour's farm. He said that on a day when he was really very happy, he took some grains of dal and boiled it.
“He was in tatters. And he smelled. After he went, we opened all the windows of the office. The office smelled for days and days,” Khehar said, adding that he was moved by the plight of that man.
“Eventually, we won him the case. He came back and thanked me. This time, he was neatly dressed. His clothes were washed. He did not smell dirty. He said after he won the case, and got some income, his family had come back to him, that he had earned their respect again,” the CJI said.
This, he said, was the best thing about the legal profession. “This is the beauty of what we can do for others. We have to make it a matter of self-happiness,” Khehar told the gathering of lawyers, stressing that “this is our duty”.
He was addressing a function organised by the Bar Council of India to felicitate him upon taking over as the new CJI.
Khehar, who took over as the CJI from Justice T.S. Thakur earlier this month, said his achievements in life were really the outcome of these very small people whom he engaged with right in the beginning of his career.
Khehar had practised in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Himachal Pradesh High Court and also argued before the Supreme Court before he was inducted into the judiciary.
“Where I stand in life is on the basis of what they gave me rather than what I gave them. Whatever we are, our income, where we take our children on vacations, their education, the kind of hospitals that we go to, it is all because of what these people give us,” he said.
Khehar is known for his sensitivity to issues of the poor and the marginalised. It showed in his decision to resume the Social Justice Bench as soon as he took charge as the CJI. The Social Justice Bench had been discontinued by his predecessor Justice Thakur.
Emphasising on the role played by lawyers, he said they were brokers of peace, and without them, there would be absolute anarchy.
“One has seen that Prime Ministers need lawyers. When Indira Gandhi litigated, she needed a lawyer. Chief Minsiters, ministers need lawyers. We have seen that in the 2G scam and in the coal scam,” the CJI said.
He also reminded the legal fraternity that lawyers were needed by small people also.
Khehar then went on to narrate an incident pertaining to his agricultural farm. It was about a neigbour cutting down all the trees that he had planted in the passage leading to the farm. It turned out that the neighbour was drunk when he did that. Justice Khehar said he told his father they would plant new trees. But his father said what if the neighbour got drunk again and cut the trees again.
“So we lodged a complaint and went to a lawyer,” Khehar said, adding to peals of laughter, “So, judges also need lawyers.”