The nature of judging

If the procedure is fair, the end result is fair; that is the end of the matter. Otherwise, judging becomes a complex matter.

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JUDGING or dispensing justice is a complex issue – it is difficult to define.

American judge Billings Learned Hand narrates a conversation with his compatriot, American jurist and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., on a Saturday, when the judges of the U.S. Supreme Court confer about cases argued before them. When parting company with Holmes, Hand said: "Well, sir, goodbye. Do justice!" Holmes replied, "That is not my job. My job is to play the game according to the rules."'

Holmes believed that the judges should follow the statute as they see it, whatever the personal consequences may be. It was clearly visible in his dissent in Lochner versus New York (1905).

Also read: Who was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most famous judges of the Anglophone world?

Doing justice versus playing the game as per its rules

The aforesaid philosophy resonates with a story that reverberates in the corridors of the Allahabad High Court. It was narrated in detail by Chief Justice M.C. Desai in his farewell speech (reported in the 1966 Allahabad Law Journal). The tale, in short, goes as follows: