The Delhi High Court judges and lawyers today bid farewell to Chief Justice Darmar Murugesan who is due to retire on June 8 after serving as a judge for more than 13 years.
During his tenure of eight months here, Justice Murugesan, who was sworn in as the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court on September 26, 2012, had in a strong move towards safety of women taken suo motu cognisance of the brutal December 16 gangrape in the city and issued directions to the Delhi police to prevent repeat of such incidents.
Justice Murugesan had pronounced several other significant judgements. In a case pertaining to Right To Education (RTE), he had observed "educational institutions cannot be allowed to run as teaching shops" since that would be detrimental to equal opportunity to children and held that this Act was not applicable to nursery classes.
In his farewell speech, Murugesan, who was appointed as judge in 2000 and served Mardras High Court fore more than 12 years, said, "I firmly believe that we live in a world in which values like kindness and compassion are essential which I kept always in my mind while discharging my duties.
"I also firmly believe that the greatest strength of the judiciary is the faith of the people in it. On my part I had lived up to the expectation of a person to be a judge."
In the full court reference, Justice Murugesan urged the senior lawyers to guide their juniors to "shape themselves to become able and dedicated lawyers" and support them financially if they are from poor back ground.
Representing the high court lawyers, A S Chandhiok, President of Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA), said that Justice Murugesan had given opportunities to the lawyers to place their cases.
The high court lawyers had observed a two-day protest against Chief Justice Murugesan's recommendation to increase the lower court's pecuniary jurisdiction limit from Rs 20 lakhs to Rs Two crore.
"Your lordships have endeavoured strenuously to hold the scales of justice even and treat alike all litigants without distinction of cast, creed, race or position, regardless of the status of the counsel and tried uniformity to keep wide open the gates of justice and allowed everyone to have fullest opportunity to place their case," Chandhiok said
The Bar Asscoiation President said it was clearly felt that his ambition was to attain "the ideal of judicial administration, to hear patiently, to consider diligently, to understand rightly and to decide justly.
