Sunil Sethi: My long day at Tis Hazari

AL FRESCO

Two place names fill the capital's citizens with dread: Tihar Jail and Tis Hazari. Long ago as a reporter covering crime""the trail of the infamous Charles Sobhraj, for instance""I had to hang out in both and ever since have carried the impression that the court was much worse than the jail. Tis Hazari must be among the ugliest and most intractable district courts in the country. If its physical appearance is of a mass of prison-like buildings, its functioning is beyond human comprehension.

The Tis Hazari Bar Association has been on strike since January 2 mainly because it objects to another court being opened in the suburb of Rohini with better facilities. Aggressive bar members have undertaken fasts-unto-death, routinely bash up colleagues who wish to enter Tis Hazari and create roadblocks on the route to Rohini. Now, the strike has become so complicated that the High Court has issued contempt notices.

It was against this background that I spent a day at Tis Hazari not long ago to attend to a purely procedural personal matter. As it had already taken 15 months to try and get a piece of paper at huge cost (court fees are now punitive), delay was no longer possible. My lawyer's sole plea was that I should be present in court before the judge arrived at 10 am.

It was a long day, from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm, but I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. Tis Hazari looked calmer and cleaner, a far cry from the dreadful, dark warren of rabbit-holes I recalled. The corridors were newly tiled, the lifts worked and the toilets were bearable. The court room designated for succession cases bore a new coat of whitewash. There were plenty of spare benches and chairs for petitioners.

Next to me was a sad, old woman who had travelled by bus from Kalkaji, half way across town. She was fighting for a monthly pension of Rs 600 because her brother and sister-in-law had died and she was entitled as next of kin. She was frightened, she said, because it was the first time she was in court without the lawyer. Twenty matters were listed for hearing before lunch, a ragbag of property and business transfers. Among the more interesting litigants was a handicapped person with a speech problem. I wondered how he would present his case. The judge's beady-eyed clerks, preparing the records, seemed neither pleasant nor helpful.

It is true that the judge was more than an hour late, but he proved to be one of the best surprises in Tis Hazari. Well-spoken and assured, he possessed two other attributes of a good judge. He was attentive yet in complete command. Nothing escaped his notice, neither the papers placed before him nor what was going on in court. He ordered a chair to be brought for the lady from Kalkaji and asked the court peons to help her when she tottered forward. He patiently communicated with the handicapped litigant through chits. He was also incredibly fast and went through 20 cases in an hour and a half.

Only once did he raise his voice, when an unlisted petitioner tried to push his way to the front. He turned to the peons and muttered in a low growl: "Out, throw him out."

I was the last to come up. He quizzed me and scrutinised my papers carefully. Then, politely, he said: "I am sorry the court is running late. But now I must retire to my chamber to attend to administrative matters. If you come back after lunch I will ensure that your order is dictated and ready."

True to his word, he handed it to me at 4 pm. I rang my lawyer with relief on the way out. "How has horrible old Tis Hazari turned over a new leaf?"

"It's not that," she replied. "It's just that the judges are in a good mood because the lawyers are out of the way."