Judges are not monks, work pressure on them too

New Delhi: Judges are not monks and work pressure sometimes gets to them as well, Justice L Nageswara Rao, the fifth senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, said on Friday while sharing the ceremonial bench with the CJI on his effectively last working day in the office.

Justice Rao, the seventh in the history of the apex court who was elevated directly from the Bar, termed a "good sojourn" his tenure of over six years as the judge of the top court and fondly recalled his advocacy days as well. "I have been a member of this Bar for 22 years and it is all your love and affection that have made my job very easy. I had a very smooth ride.

Thank you very much. "Even today I feel that that side (advocates') is much better than this side and given a chance I would be there for my lifetime. Thank you very much. It has been a good sojourn for me. I have learnt from brother and sister judges and I hope that I live up to your expectations because I am from this Bar," he said. Moved by the well wishes from the members of the Bar and Attorney General K K Venugopal, and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Justice Rao said that he wanted to apologise if he had hurt the lawyers during the court proceedings by raising his voice.

"If I have been harsh in the court and if I have hurt somebody. I apologise for that. Please understand that the job is such that we have to decide in favour of one person and there would be the other side who would definitely not be happy with what we did. "And the pressure of work sometimes gets to us because we are not monks. I know that sometimes I have raised my voices a few times at least to drown the voices of lawyers," he said.