Hon'ble Justice Nagendra Kumar Jain

Welcome by Advocate General

The Law Weekly Writes

It is not new lamps for old, as in Allain’s tale. It is our won Justice Jain who is now our Chief Justice, our nineteenth Chief Justice after our country became Indian Union or Republic.

From the day he came in our midst, on transfer from his own Rajasthan High Court to which he had been elevated both on his own merits and also on account of its being his fir`nR;u~ (Mitakshara) – his late father had himself been judge of Rajasthan High Court. Mr. Justice Jain has endeared himself to one and all the members of our fraternity. We are reminded of the immortal pharase of the dforkfdZd dsljh the iSrkugu~ ?kuu~

We have had several Acting/ Officiating Chief Justices during the last 50 years. Some held the position for a mere one day, one week, two weeks and some for relatively longer periods. Chief Justice Madhavayya Anantanarayanan I.C.S.- the only civilian Chief Justice of our High Court, officiated for the longest, strip of time, if our memory has not played false.

Lucky Number 9

Justice Jain stepped in to act as Chief Justice when Justice Shivraj Patil left us to take over at Rajasthan, and later, Justice Jain made way to Chief Justice Agarwal. After the latter demitted office, there was Mr. Justice Jain to take over again. He handed over the office to Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan who took over as our Chief Justice on the ninth day of the ninth month of the year nineteen ninety nine. When Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishanan left us to take his seat on the Supreme Court Bench, our Justice Jain once again became our Acting Chief Justice. It is a co-incidence that the appointment of our Chief Justice Hon’ble Mr. Jain also was published on the ninth day of the ninth month of this year.

We could notice the popularity of our Chief Justice Jain in his former High Court of Rajasthan, when his colleagues Justice Y.R. Meena, Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice D.N. Sinha- now functioning as judges on transfer under Article 222, at the Calcutta and Mumbai High Courts were personally present in our Meeting Hal at 11.50 A.M. on 13-9-2000 after having attended the formal swearing in function at Raj Bhavan, Guindy in the morning. Particularly endearing is the text of the personal letter which Mrs. Aruna Jain and Mr. Chief Justice Jain wrote on 6-9-2000 to his friends on the “SHAMAVANI DAY” celebrated by the Jains at “PARYUSHAN PARVA”. When we recall that we have our popular judge Dr. A.R. Lakshmanan as the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High court now, we are grateful to Providence that we have had an exchange of the two nice Chief Justices in their respective positions.

Why say “Acting”?

IFor us in Law Weekly, it was quite irksome to refer to the judge as Acting Chief Justice. We felt that the proper address was Chief Justice (Acting). When our country’s foremost lawyer the former Attorney General Sri K. Parasaram a distinguished and noble member of our Bar addressed Mr. Justice Jain as Mr. Chief Justice Jain on 27-8-2000, we felt vindicated.

Our popular and learned Advocate General Sri K.V. Venkatapathy, in his Welcome speech, has given expression to all our feelings of delight at the finalisation by the Rastrapathi of the act of shedding of the unwanted prefix “Acting” by Chief Justice Jain . We in Law Weekly associate ourselves with every word that the learned Advocate General spoke on the occasion.

Time- Bound progress

                                                                                                                                                          
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