KOCHI: Former Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court, Justice Narayana Kurup, has said the very purpose of constituting the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) is to reduce the workload on high courts that are burdened with a “docket explosion”.
He was speaking at a function held at the Brahmamangalam High School on Thursday to felicitate Adv P A Augustian, who has been appointed judicial member of CESTAT. “Justice delayed is justice denied, and justice hurried is justice buried. So a balance has to be struck and orders pronounced within a reasonable limit, as otherwise, it will defeat the very purpose of the constitution of the tribunal,” said Justice Kurup.
The former judge of the Kerala High Court also blamed the current functioning of courts and tribunals for the delay in hearings and long judgments. He said time limits on submissions and page limits on judgments are important for the quick disposal of cases.
To point out the importance of conciseness of judgments, Justice Kurup referred to Panampilly Govinda Menon, who once said the Bhagavad Gita, the universally renowned jewel of India’s spiritual wisdom, consists of only 700 verses in 18 chapters, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was just 270 words long and the Ten Commandments, the moral and legal foundation of all civilisation, comprises less than 300 words.
While emphasising the point of conciseness of orders, he cited the style of former US Supreme Court judge Justice Holmes, who used to write judgments at a high desk, often standing. Holmes’ justification was, “If I sit down, I write long opinions and don’t come to the point as quickly as I could. If I stand up, I write as long as my knees hold out. When they don’t, I know it is time to stop.”
In the collection of a deceased Welsh Judge, there is a portrait of a colleague George Wood who was famous for the extreme conciseness of his style which followed him to the Bench. “A man having stolen a fish, one saw him carrying it away, half under his coat, and said, friend, when next you steal, take a shorter fish or wear a long coat,” Justice Kurup quoted the Welsh judge as saying.
Justice Kurup congratulated Augustian on his elevation as a judicial member of CESTAT and said that his persistence has helped him reach where he is today. Augustian, who joined the Indian Air Force in May 1985 and served for 16 years, has a BA and MA in public administration, besides an LLB. He also holds a PG diploma in management.