HC keeps garbage on display

The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday found a novel way of making its lawyers realise the importance of keeping the campus clean by displaying prominently, on a bench placed outside a court hall, the garbage that had been strewn next to a waterbody on the campus.

Many lawyers, court staffers and litigants were surprised to see the garbage placed on the table along with two notice boards which read: “To all members of legal fraternity, thank you very much for keeping the campus of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court clean and tidy. We solicit your cooperation.

“This was your contribution to keep the environment of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court campus clean. There are more such valuable articles thrown all over the law chambers building. Please inform when we clean the same.” The message had also been translated and printed in Tamil.

High Court staff said that it was done on the instructions of Justice R. Sudhakar, the administrative judge of the Bench, who later in the day told the lawyers in open court that it was meant to sensitise people to their responsibility towards keeping the campus clean and not to hurt anyone.

The judge recalled that a similar methodology adopted by him at a college in Tiruchi yielded the desired result. “I had gone to the college to attend a function at 9 a.m. But a group of students came late. I just invited all of them and made them sit along with me on the dais. I didn’t do anything else but for honouring them by offering seats on the podium. At the end of the event, all of them apologised and said that they shall be punctual thereafter. Therefore, this kind of treatment also works,” he said.

Asking lawyers to suggest ways to keep the campus clean, the judge said that he recently found the presence of termites near the library building and directed the Public Works Department to clean it up.

“In Chennai too, we found that around 20 per cent of wooden reapers on the roof of the heritage building [housing the principal seat of the 153-year-old High Court] was infested with termites. It would have caused greater damage to the buildings if it had gone unchecked,” he recalled.