New Delhi, June 29: Judges are public servants not god. They are assigned to serve justice, said, Chief Justice of India (CJI), DY Chandrachud.
While addressing the Regional Conference of National Judicial Academy here on Saturday he said that peoples’ perception on the Court as a temple of justice, is also wrong.
Addressing the conference, the CJI said that the trend of equating judges with God is dangerous for the society since the task of judges is to serve public interest.
“Too very often, we are addressed as Honour or as Lordship or as Ladyship. There is a grave danger that we perceive ourselves as the deities in those temples,” CJI Chandrachud said
“I would rather recast the role of the judge as a server of the people. And when you regard yourselves as people who are there to serve others, then you bring in the notion of compassion, of empathy, of judging but not being judgmental about others,” the CJI said.
He said that even while sentencing anyone in a criminal case, the judges do that with a sense of compassion, since at the end, a human being is being sentenced.
“So these concepts of constitutional morality, which I think, are the key, not just for the judges of the Supreme Court or the High Court but also for the district judiciary itself, because the engagement of the common citizens begins first and foremost with the district judiciary,” CJI Chandrachud said.
