On his final day as Chief Justice of India before retirement, N V Ramana on Friday delivered judgments in five cases – the PIL seeking a ban on ‘election freebies’, the 2007 Gorakhpur riots case, the Karnataka mining case, the Rajasthan mining lease issue and the liquidation regulations under the bankruptcy law. For the first time in the Supreme Court, the proceedings of the ceremonial bench in Ramana’s court were live streamed. On the last working day, CJI Ramana shared the bench with CJI-designate Justice UU Lalit & Justice Hima Kohli.
NV Ramana has been distributing master of roster cases for hearing in 16 benches of the court. However, in the past, he appeared helpless in front of the Supreme Court registry regarding the listing of cases. In fact, on August 17, a case listed for hearing was removed by the registry.
In such a situation, CJI Ramana was very angry and he said that he would speak on this issue in his farewell speech on August 26. However, he said during the farewell speech that, “The issue of pendency is the biggest challenge and I believe that listing is an area where I could not pay much attention. I am sorry for that. The only way to improve the system is to deploy modern technologies and artificial intelligence. But unlike commercial organisations, we cannot buy them from the market.” Apart from this, Ramana had also said that there are many issues on which he wants to question, but he did not want to speak before leaving the post.
He also requested seniors to guide their juniors who entered the bar, to the right path. He said that–
“I am not the last or the first one to contribute to the development of the institution. Several great people have contributed immensely to advance the cause of justice. Unfortunately, during the last 16 months, in my tenure as CJI, full fledged hearing was possible on only 50 days. People may come and go, but the institution remains forever. Each one of us have to make our own contributions, I have done my bit to the best of my ability. The bar may have many long standing issues, I have tried to understand to the extent possible.”
