Please Your Lordship

I often have to go to courtroom no. 24 at the High Court of Calcutta to observe one of the proceedings between the Birlas and the Lodhas, being the advocate on record for the former. There are hundred such applications pending on the part of both sides, which are fighting for property worth the Gross Domestic Product of certain countries I am sure. Such applications are responsible for my bread and butter and whisky.

These matters are always argued by Senior Counsels, since one cannot take a chance with lesser mortals. And they are almost always 'specially fixed' (let's say, at 2 p.m.) for arguments by these Counsels, since once cannot take a chance, unlike cases of lesser mortals, which may take years to appear on a cause list, and further years to be heard, and yet further years to get disposed of. They never end, since our wonderful systems of appeals ensure that complete justice is meted out, to both parties. The judiciary often seems to be like the intermediary monkey taking the responsibility of dividing a piece of bread between two fighting cats, and to ensure complete division, biting off the surplus portion on anyone's share. In the process of ensuring absolute division, it is discovered later that the piece of bread has ceased to exist, but the fight goes on. 

On one such occasion, just before my matter had to start, I saw an elderly man, slowly edging towards the court. He must have been in his 60s, wearing middle-class clothes and patent black-rimmed glasses. He went before the court and said he wanted a date for hearing of his matter, since he was not being issued his retirement benefits and was in considerable difficulty. The Judge again asked him the urgency involved for Him to hear his matter earlier than the rest of the matters, and the Birla matters. He pleaded that he had to come from Madhyamgram everyday for his case, which by the way takes around three hours by train from Calcutta. The Judge finally ruled that He cannot decide a case out of turn, and since it was appearing in the cause list, his case would ultimately be taken up. The man bowed and left, unsure of what he was to do next.

I suppose he must have got hold of one of my fellow brothers from the profession to fight his case, since on the next occasion I saw him in court, he again slowly edged in front of the Court and said that his lawyer had not appeared that day, and asked what could be done about it. "Your lawyer hasn't come, is it? Are you an officer of the court?" the Judge asked. The man, who perhaps was not even sure about what an 'officer of the court' was, nodded his head in the negative, with hopeful eyes, as if suggesting that he could argue his case himself, since he anyway knew his plight more than his lawyer did. "If you are not an officer of this Court, you have no locus standi to be heard", the Court observed. The man, in obvious ignorance of the Latin expression the Courts freely assume and use, stood there, not knowing what he was supposed to do. "You have no right to be heard", came the Judge's stern voice again. The man bowed again, and left, and Senior Counsel Mr. Mitra commenced his submissions in Birla versus Lodha. "May it please Your Lordship", he began.