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Synopsis

While bidding farewell to the Delhi High Court on Wednesday Justice Siddharth Mridul quoted Albert Einstein and said, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving forward”.

Justice Mridul has now been appointed as the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court.

Addressing the high court, Justice Mridul said “This is not a farewell, rather it is till we meet again”.

“My late father has been my role model and my inspiration all along my journey as a person, as a lawyer, and then as a judge of this court. For those who may not know, my late father was a Judge at the High Court of Judicature at Bombay where I spent my childhood and where I completed high school. My father from a very young age instilled in me the qualities of kindness, compassion and zeal to serve humanity. Through sheer, osmosis, I imbibed through him forthrightness, and fearlessness as well as unity of thought, speech and action”, he said.

“Fate struck us a cruel blow, when I lost my father at the young age of 54 years, while I was still a student at the Campus Law Centre. As the eldest among three siblings, I was faced with a situation, where although we had some shelter and some means, we were left without a wage earner in the family. I had to reinvent myself to take charge of the struggles that the family endured”, he added.

Justice Mridul said, “Many a time, I almost determined to give up my dream of becoming a lawyer by securing employment. But by his (father's) grace, I have succeeded. I am grateful eternally to all the members of my family for the unstinting and unflinching love and support, which has enabled me to walk mainly in the direction that I wanted”.

“Both as a person and as a professional I have subscribed to the credo that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. This hallowed institution, and all those who are of all of it, lawyers as well as judges, I thank from the bottom of my heart for accepting me as I am and for showering me with love, support and understanding throughout”, he said.

He further said that the Bar and the Bench are the two wheels of administration of justice and have always worked together in Delhi to secure for the people of the country liberty, equality and justice, social, economic and political.

To the younger members, Justice Mridul advised them to remember the famous words of Einstein, “You never fail until you stop flying”.

To his colleagues and friends on the bench, he said, “I feel duty bound to quote an excerpt from a book called Laughing at the Dots. Adjudication is not carpentry. All the judges would do well to inculcate and equivalent judicial pride in their work, they also must be designers and innovators who place their professional craft in the service of political values and social ideas…”.

While concluding his speech, he said, “I will miss Delhi. It is a beautiful city and all the courts that I have practiced in Delhi as a lawyer, the Supreme Court of India downwards including tribunals, some of which do not exist anymore”.