'Will miss my Hindustan': Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia bids adieu; lauds SC, lawyers in farewell address

NEW DELHI: At his farewell function on the eve of retirement, Supreme Court judge Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia on Friday described the top court as his “Hindustan” — a place where cases and lawyers from across the country converge.“Over breakfast, my wife asked me, ‘What will you miss the most after demitting office?’ I immediately said, ‘My Hindustan’,” he recalled, speaking at the event. “She didn’t understand. She probably thought I was losing my marbles. But ‘Hindustan’ is you — the lawyers. This is perhaps the only court where cases come from every corner of the country. That is what I will miss the most — having this Hindustan before me every morning.”Invoking literature to explain his perspective, Justice Dhulia cited Somerset Maugham’s 1915 novel "Of Human Bondage." He likened his Supreme Court experience to the novel’s protagonist Philip, who, after studying art in Paris, tells his uncle he has learned “to look at a tree against the background of the sky.” “It is what I saw here, through your (lawyers) arguments — something I had not visualised before,” the judge stated.Calling court hearings his “best experience,” he reflected on a career spanning decades. Born on August 10, 1960, into a family of public servants — his father a judge of the Allahabad high court, his mother an academic, and his grandfather a freedom fighter — Justice Dhulia studied in Dehradun, Allahabad (now Prayagraj) and Lucknow. He graduated in 1981, completed his LLB in 1986, and earned a Master’s in Modern History. He began his legal practice at the Allahabad high court before moving to the Uttarakhand high court in 2000, where he became a senior advocate and was elevated to the bench in 2008. In January 2021, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court and, in May 2022, elevated to the Supreme Court. (With PTI inputs)