Judicial officers’ conduct must re-affirm faith of public in impartiality of judiciary : CJ

Jammu, Dec16 : Chief Justice of High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Justice N Kotiswar Singh, today said that the judicial officers exercise sovereign power and hold public office of great trust and responsibility and therefore their behaviour and conduct must re-affirm the faith of public in impartiality and independence of the judiciary both inside as well as outside the court.

According to an official press release, he was a two day workshop held by J&K Judicial Academy on “Judicial Ethics and Code of Conduct, Stress and Behavioural Management, Court Management and Docket Management” for civil judges (senior and junior division) here. The Chief Justice inaugurated the workshop.

“Constant efforts should be put in to bridge the gap between what they say and what they do,”the Chief Justice said. He shared many real-life examples and impressed upon the members of Judiciary to strike a fine balance between their personal and professional lives so that there is no overlapping of roles. Justice N Kotiswar Singh emphasised that the time of a judge is public time of which he is only a trusty and therefore, he cannot afford to waste even a single minute out of it.

Chief Justice advised the judicial officers to take good care of themselves and maintain a good health as only a healthy mind and a healthy body can generate good, sound, clean and noble thoughts and suggested them to practice Yoga to control their mind. He also called upon the Judicial Officers to inculcate a habit of deriving pleasure out of reading.

Justice Rahul Bharti, in his special remarks, underlined the purpose and importance of holding such training programmes at regular intervals to motivate and enhance the awareness level of judicial officers relating to the judicial ethics and to share best practices while applying the sameto their day-to-day work.

According to an official press release, the workshop was held under the patronage of Justice N Kotiswar Singh, Chief Justice, High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, (Patron-in-Chief, J&K Judicial Academy) and stewardship of Justice Sanjeev Kumar, Chairperson, Governing Committee for J&K Judicial Academy and guidance of Justice Javed Iqbal Wani, Justice Rahul Bharti and Justice Moksha Kazmi, members of Governing Committee for J&K Judicial Academy.

The training programme was inaugurated by the Chief Justice in presence of Justice Rahul Bharti, Member, Governing Committee for Judicial Academy, Justice (Retd) Bansi Lal Bhat, High Court of J&K, Amit Kumar Gupta, Member Secretary, J&K Legal Services Authority and Dr T R Raina, retired Professor and Head of the Blood Bank Government Medical College Jammu who also happen to be the resource persons in the two day workshop.