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Synopsis

Justice Sarasa Venkatanarayana Bhatti, of the Supreme Court of India has remarked that Sri Kesavananda Bharati Swamy has an extended presence in the precedents of the Supreme Court and thus he is continuing to live in the history and memory of our nation.

Speaking at Golden Jubilee Celebrations organised by Edneer Math, Kasargod, for the landmark judgment of His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru & Ors. vs. State of Kerala & Anr., Justice Bhatti has said the fundamental rights case has its own place in the history of democratic and republic India and the nation always acknowledges it.

Swamy Kesavananda Bharati was the chief pontiff of the Edneer Math, a religious institution located in Kasaragod, Kerala.

At the beginning of his address, Justice Bhatti remarked that it’s an arduous task to take up a momentous judgement like Kesavananda Bharati and keep the audience engaged for at least 20 minutes. To cover the journey of Kesavananda Bharati in 20 minutes is a herculean task and who are in the thick of practice will understand this, he added.

"Any amount of narrative on the judgement is like holding a candle for the illustrious characters such as Sri Swamy Kesavananda Bharati, Late Shri Nani Palkhivala and all the learned judges on the 13-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India who were part of the fundamental rights case..", Justice Bhatti said.

Referring to the length of the landmark judgement, the judge joked as to how, the younger generation could just ask for a brief of the judgment on Chat GPT. He further said,

"This generation now can just ask on chat GPT, "what is the judgement about?". Even I have done that and AI gave me a list of all the judgements in which this case has been referred to and is treating this judgement as the Gibraltar rock..."

While reading out on how Kesavananda Bharati judgement had been summed up by artificial intelligence, the judge remarked that what took him over two months to put into two pages had been reduced to two paragraphs by the artificial intelligence.

Delivering his inaugural address for the year-long celebration, the Supreme Court judge added, "My inaugural speech is like a puzzle or a movie teaser so that the program intended for a year continues to engage the interest of all like-minded people, especially students and budding lawyers aspiring to hold constitutional posts."

 

Justice Bhatti also referred to a personal experience from his practice days and said,

"I relocated my practice from Madanapalle to High Court of Hyderabad and having started my practice at the High Court I thought the best way to earn the confidence of my senior is to see to it that whenever he is watching me, I will read Kesavananda Bharati versus State of Kerala. My senior being a smart man, he allowed me to dabble, for about one month. He never interrupted me. He never discouraged me. He is a man with enormous pragmatic approach in the profession. After one month he asked me how many pages I had read. I told him I was still taking notes of the majority view. Then he asked me to get into court. I found a very good alibi and told him that I will get into court when I finish Kesavananda Bharati judgement. He told me that this was a judgement of momentous importance in the country and our profession is not about a day or two, and as I go about it, I will read Kesavananda Bharati every day. He said every time you read it, you will get a new idea. Therefore, don’t wait to enter the court. I took this advice very seriously and got into this profession..."