Thread by @barandbench

#DelhiHighCourt farewell reference for Justice RS Endlaw who retires today begins. Track thread for live updates.

The event can be viewed live on YouTube:

Chief Justice DN Patel gives opening address: We have virtually assembled to bid farewell to our esteemed colleague Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw who is demitting office upon superannuation after a distinguished and fruitful career.

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Chief Justice Patel: For the grounds of this institution Justice Endlaw has always been willing to take responsibilities beyond judicial work. On the administrative side, Justice Endlaw rendered his valuable assistance as a member of various committees

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CJ Patel: Justice Endlaw has rendered many landmark judgments. In one case (casename unclear), Justice Endlaw observed that photocopy or a copy would also be a document and that it cannot be said that CPC provisions for filing of documents related only to original #DelhiHighCourt

Chief Justice DN Patel recalls more landmark judgments rendered by Justice Endlaw including on election law, copyright law, succession, and inheritance, etc.

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CJ Patel: There are several decisions, but I have quoted only a few, otherwise for one hour or two I will have to continuously speak.

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CJ Patel: Justice Endlaw was often asked to contribute in national and international events. He was part of the expert committees for Law Commission of India which in the 253rd report dealt with commercial division, appellate division of HC, and Commercial Courts Bill, 2015.

CJ Patel: It was in the 4th century BC that philosopher Socrates described the essentials of a good judge - to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially. Justice Endlaw possesses all these qualities beyond doubt.

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CJ Patel: During my tenure, I have found Justice Endlaw to be a sincere, hardworking, punctual, and humane person. As a Judge of this court, his contribution to justice will always be remembered and cherished.

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CJ Patel: Justice Endlaw has rendered all possible assistance that the institution expects from a Judge in discharging his constitutional obligations. He shall be remembered for his positive support in all court-related activities and the discipline he maintained on and off court

ASG Chetan Sharma: My Lord Justice Endlaw is a known classical judge, as we would see him, all of us. He represents that class of legal luminaries who would be possessed of the law, the law, and only the law.

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ASG Chetan Sharma: No wonder God probably destined him to take birth in a family with the surname "Endlaw". It's debatable whether the law ended with Justice Sahai or did Justice Sahai begin the prefatory forerunner of what the law should be.

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ASG Sharma: Justice Endlaw has been a picture of great erudition and great learning. He would go into the nitty-gritty of the law. For a lawyer who started on the original side, we have seen Justice Endlaw so painstaking, so thorough.

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ASG Sharma: He would be in Tiz Hazari at 10 am in the morning, he would finish matters by 11.30-45 and he would on the original side with his huge three or four bags and he would immerse himself into the courtrooms and present his case with great thoroughness and precision

ASG Sharma: We have never seen Justice Endlaw lose his temper. His powers of concentration were unwavering, unrelenting, unswerving. And he has been bestowed, if I may say so, by surplusage of attention.

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ASG Sharma: Justice Endlaw, who would go from 10.30 am till 5 or 6.30 pm without the least minimal bit of lapse in concentration.

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ASG Sharma speaks on nicknames that find their way into orders: Justice Endlaw only has only a sober, serious side of him. However, in one of the orders, he advised a lawyer named "Rit Arora" to change the name to "writ" Arora.

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ASG Sharma: We always thought of him as having the last word in Transfer of Property Act, Hindu law, arbitration, name what you may. In every roster held, there was a stellar contribution in every field. One could see uncharted areas being charted with finesse and grace.

ASG Sharma: For the Bar, the topic in the canteen on chambers would be 'think 3 steps ahead of your brief.' 3 steps we could think and then go before Justice Endlaw, but we would be stumped when the 4th dimension is put to us for which, most of us were found wanting for answers

ASG Sharma goes on to recount some of Justice Endlaw's notable judgments.

Sharma: These are just some of the highlights which gives a look into the mindset of the Hon'ble Judge, of his egalitarian, non-discriminatory, firm, and legally grounded and well-informed insight into law

ASG Sharma: I also did put to Justice Endlaw, 'Sir, what would you do after retirement?'

He said, 'Mr. Sharma, we must learn to happily accept and this acceptance is a very valuable virtue.'

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ASG Sharma: I said, 'Sir, I think you are framed in such a way that either work would pursue you or you would be doing something or the other.'

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Sharma: It is not for nothing that in a written order, his Lordship when pestered by the counsel asking his Lordship as to what 'I should or not do', his Lordship did take up the pen and dictate in open court that 'this question you should ask after Aug 12th when I demit office.'

ASG Sharma: A sneeze or a cough or lack of concentration or ineptitude of a lawyer would invariably find a place in the order itself. Justice Endlaw's order was a transcript of all that had happened in court.

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ASG Sharma: Such was the transparency of Justice Endlaw.

I, on a very personal note, when I took over as ASG - within 48 hours there was an international arbitration matter - Vodafone v UOI ...

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ASG Sharma: We were in appeal, I was told that Justice Endlaw's Bench. I said, knowing his lordship, no date would be granted and I don't want to start on a note of mercy by asking for an adjournment.

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ASG Sharma: He said, "but there were 29,000 pages. How will you?"

I said "Yes, Mr Salve is on the other side, and Justice Endlaw is the Judge, so what better test by fire can there be? Let's get into it."

It was a great privilege going on till 6 or 7 pm each day and each week.

ASG Sharma: Even in the interim orders that were passed from day today.

One such interim order had 21 questions for us to be answered on the next date. The tongue-in-cheek remark was "should I start the hearing or start by answering the questions which will take another 2 days?"

ASG Sharma: This is probably the last species of the classical test match batsmen as we called them, who could play a 5 day and who could go on to play even a 7 day in the thicket of law.

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ASG Sharma: We will all miss that. But as Justice Endlaw said, "Mr. Sharma, this is all changing. We are in the situation of T20. Times are changing, we have to adapt. And the ones who accept the change is the real champion."

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Standing counsel Santhosh Tripathy, speaks next. He recounts several important judgments rendered by Justice Endlaw. He wishes Justice Endlaw great success in all future endeavors.

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Ramesh Gupta, Chairman, Bar Council of Delhi: Before conveying a farewell message to Justice Endlaw, I on behalf of the entire Bar Council of Delhi and the legal fraternity would like to thank Justice Endlaw for his contributions to the field of law.

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Ramesh Gupta: Justice Endlaw always reminded that each and every lawyer should give equal importance to the procedural technicalities and the same cannot be ignored for the sake of substantive justice.

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Ramesh Gupta: The perfectionist approach of Justice Endlaw surely raised the bars for the lawyers appearing in his court.

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Ramesh Gupta: Justice Endlaw gave a very balanced treatment to all the lawyers appearing in his court and it is for this reason that even after not getting a favourable decision, neither the lawyers nor the litigants felt upset.

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Ramesh Gupta: The decisions of Justice Law always were backed up by good and sound reasoning.

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Ramesh Gupta: Justice Endlaw set the Benchmark which has not been equated. He also possessed what I consider to be one of the finer judicial attributes - compassion.

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Ramesh Gupta recounts several cases decided by Justice Endlaw.

Gupta: Last month, Justice Endlaw expressed concern about some economically stressed students who are unable to deposit the fee for enrolment as an advocate in the Bar Council of Delhi.

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Ramesh Gupta: The Bar Council of Delhi is in the process of reducing the fee of enrolment of students who are from economically stressed families. But just now, I received a letter from BCI, they have rejected our proposal. But we will try our best again.

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Gupta: Justice Endlaw will be remembered by every lawyer who has had the opportunity to appear before him for his sincere competency, intellectual humility, dedicated zeal to find out true facts, and, not to forget his knack of keeping court atmosphere light by using humour

Mohit Mathur, President, DHCBA: Justice Endlaw is someone I never imagined retiring firstly as I seldom appeared before him and had no reason to want him to retire. Secondly, because he was the man who burnt the midnight oil in the name of the law till the last day, in his office

Mathur: A man with a befitting name, 'Justice Endlaw' is hanging up his robes after serving this honourable court for 13 solid years. Let us not dampen our spirits just yet and give him a warm, Delhi High Court send-off, as tradition demands.

Mathur: Justice Endlaw shares his birthday with Fidel Castro, Alfred Hitchcock, and Shoaib Akhtar. And I need not say a word more for anyone who practices in this Court, knows fully well to expect revolution, suspense and some nasty bouncers and beamers in his courtroom

Mathur: His court was known to be one of the toughest courts which did not leave scope for any error or an insincere attempt that would be met with fire. There was a 'golden standard' and then there was Justice Endlaw's standard.

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Mathur: It takes tremendous sacrifice to achieve excellence and Justice Endlaw showed us how it is done.

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Justice Endlaw: When I joined the Bench, some senior Judges said "Now, you speak only through the judgments." But now that I am a judge for a few hours only, I am taking the liberty with permission of Chief to share a fact which I have ignored, which dawned during the pandemic.

Justice Endlaw: What I realized was that performing the role of a Judge who authors the judgment or the order which resolves the dispute, one was, at the back of the mind, feeling like an actor who feels the success of the film is squarely on their shoulders.

Justice Endlaw: But, then came the pandemic. And the lawyers were there, Judges were there. Delhi High Court was very fortunate, there was the virtual platform. But none of us were able to work because, what I realised was, the backbone of Court was missing. I called the registry

Justice Endlaw speaks of how without the Registry officials, Judges as authors of judgments could not perform any of the functions that they were required to do.

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Justice Endlaw: Without the personnel of the Registry going to the Court, receiving the files, transmitting electronically to us, by indexing it ...not all of us were very deft at handling the computer system, so one rang up the computer branch staff, and they were always helpful

Justice Endlaw: I had never paid much attention to the staff and the Registry. But one realized that whatever we are doing, whatever praise all of you have showered on my work today - that praise, without all that support staff, is meaningless.

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Justice Endlaw: We are fortunate, we have been provided these big houses where we have our home office. But the stenographers were opening up their screens, telling their family to keep quiet, telling their children not to study, not to listen to songs or not to pass behind them

Justice Endlaw: Whatever work one has done, most of it would not have been possible or the quality and quantity one tried to achieve would not have been possible without the (court) staff.

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Justice Endlaw: There is another very hidden facet that perhaps again doesn't come to the fore, that is the law researchers. Their role in the performance of each of us is stellar.

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Justice Endlaw: I come from an era when, in my own office, I used to rely upon books for entire legal research. So I was not very comfortable with legal search.

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Justice Endlaw: I was fortunate that in 2008 when I joined, at about that time only, this system was developed of providing law researchers. It started with one or two. That has had a large contribution to which one delivers.

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Justice Endlaw: The tedious task of proofreading... Before a judgment is delivered, one needs to be careful that the names, figures - there is no mistake in that. All that work we could pass on to the law researchers, plus legal research.

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Justice Endlaw: Without all the legal research, one could not come up with the proposition that one wanted to develop or base the decision on.

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Justice Endlaw says he wanted to bring these 2 background persons (Court staff and law researchers) to the fore.

Justice Endlaw: This Court has a tradition of honouring judges, lawyers. But till now I have not noticed any tradition of honouring these 2 facets of the court system

Justice Endlaw says that without the court/registry staff and legal researchers, the court system would have been a failure during the pandemic.

They have done a great role, without them #DelhiHighCourt would not have done the work it did, he adds.

Justice Endlaw: I very humbly accept the praises which each one of you has very kindly said for my work. But I receive it not only for myself but also on behalf of the law researchers, the personal staff attached to me.

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Justice Endlaw remarks that unlike some of his colleague judges who are made permanent judges on the first day, "I had three occasions to get out of this system."

Justice Endlaw:... but I was enjoying myself. I took one oath. I don't know if they were testing me or what was happening. They wanted me to get out of the system. So before becoming a permanent judge, there were two oaths ...

Justice Endlaw: I was enjoying myself so much that the thought did not come to my mind that I had an opportunity to go back to the same court and do the same kind of work.

Justice Endlaw thanks everyone as he concludes: I have said this yesterday. I have had a great time working with everyone and I continue to look forward to associating with each one of you.

Reference proceedings have ended.

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