 We have Dr. Hari Shetty, a famous psychiatrist, and he had done a session on the previous on the previous week, which is already doing well on the mental skills. And today, amongst us, we have Roshan Dalvi, who has taken up team number of sessions. And the more you hear her, the more better you are charmed and attracted that you to hear more because I would say she's a full full of box of knowledge. And you keep on opening it and you keep on learning more and more perspectives. And we thought that what better way could be to understand the short skills which are in the mind mindset kept in view of the legal perspective. Before we ask just as Roshan Dalvi, a former judge of Bombay High Court, to share her thought processes, we will ask Dr. Hari Shetty just to introduce the topic and just to give a hindsight of what happened in the previous session. What do you Dr. Shetty? Honorable Dr. Roshan Dalvi has an iconic name in the history of judiciary of the country. I have been associated with her for a very long time. I've heard her across different forums. She's one person who can describe the forest as well as the trees. She's one person who has always been grounded, can interact with a family member in a matrimonial court, can interact with the judge of the matrimonial court and with any audience around her. And that is the charm she has, which I've seen across time. Madam also is a person who believes that soft skills are very important in all fields, especially in the judiciary. And she also believes that a calm, composed judge, a mindful judge is somebody who progresses, learns more than anybody else. Madam has always been involved in training for a very long time, Supreme Court, different academies, national academies. And I still remember the last Supreme Court Chief Justice of India. I don't know whether it's the last seven before. She would be called to train the marriage court judges entirely all the time if I'm right, ma'am. And so with the vast history of experiences, she is one judge in this era who has been heard by all of us. We are very fortunate to have her here for all of us to learn soft skills, the legal perspective. I spoke about the mental health perspective, but she has an experience on the dyes, of the dyes inside the court and outside the court. With this, I would hand over the entire session to my dear friend and honorable Justice Roshan Dalvi of the Bombay High Court, ex Bombay High Court. Thank you, ma'am, for asking me to be here and listen to the entire deliberations across the next 90 minutes. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, friends. Dr. Shetty, because and all my friends, good evening. Happy New Year. I would say more than that, I hope you have a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous New Year, unlike 2021. I hope Omicron comes but goes and leaves us alone to have all these webinars off because. Anyway, I have been asked to introduce soft skills. Now, soft skills are skills which are endemic in any profession. I will begin with a little gleaning which I had read at least four decades ago in DLR. There was a young and enthusiastic lawyer. He appeared in a matter full of preparation and he thought that he would definitely win. He came on judgment day and his suit was dismissed. So he tells the court dismissed, my lord. I can't believe it. I never expected this. And the judge was furious. He says, how can you talk to a judge like that? And he should have condemned this. This little boy, I would call him a boy because this was his first matter. A young lawyer was completely stunned. He goes to his senior and he tells him that I had prepared so well and I had presented so well and the judge has dismissed my case and I told him that I never expected that. What's wrong? He should have condemned notice. So the senior says, don't worry, I'll go to the judge on the date of the notice. He goes on the returnable date and he tells the judge, my lord, my junior is young and enthusiastic. He does the right things the wrong way. Soon he will be old and experienced. He will then do the wrong things the right way. And he gets the notice squashed. Now, I hope you understood, friends, what are soft skills? You must remember that if you are lawyers, you are a part of the team, but you are never the captain. The judge is the captain of his ship, which is the court. And though the judge will go down with the ship, the judge will give directions for the ship to be steered. And the sooner you learn that, the better. That is about the very best soft skill that a lawyer can have if he wants not only to swim with the current, but to come up in the profession. Now, when I was a judge in the Citisville court, I was appointed in 1989, so I'm telling you of about 34 years before. One of the lawyers who was my friend as a lawyer was having a roaring practice. I soon realized when he appeared in my court that I don't like the way he argues at all. But he would come every day because he had a good practice, a very good practice. And I thought I had it. Now, this lawyer would read page after page after page of affidavits and pleadings and documents. And his, you can say, speed of reading was not my speed of reading. So it was extremely inconvenient to read with him. And he made a lot of noise, I thought just by reading. One day I lost my shirt. And I told him, Mr. So-and-so, you are a lawyer. You are not a reader. Please argue. Don't read. And he was quiet for a moment. He said, all right, now I will argue. And he started arguing. And from that day, not even overnight, from that day, he changed completely. He knew that this judge doesn't want us to read. So we have to argue. He may have continued reading in other courts, but it won't do in my court. So he changed his ways in my court. Now, I could not change my way in his arguments, but he had to do that. It was thereafter so good, so good that I used to actually feel happy when he would appear. And he would come and he'll tell me, my Lord, exhibit A, page 33, clause number three. He would begin his arguments that way. So I would go to page number 33 and I would just mark the clause and read it up quickly. And I know what the matter is about. And then he will tell me, it is this, it is this. And I'm asking for this. It went on thereafter so well that unfortunately he died. He passed away, you can say in hardness, because he was practicing. His chamber brought out a book and they called me to release the book. I have the book. So it was, it was really well done and a glorious example of soft skill. I may tell you that as we went along, one principal judge of the civil court decided that there are some judges who are taking interim matters and some judges who are taking final matters and final matters are not reaching in the interim matters court. So he said we are going to have half day interim work and half day final work. Excellent administrative direction. Many of the senior lawyers would do interim work because they would have that kind of practice. So they continued coming only in the afternoon session. And it was very good because they would have their conferences in the morning session when we would be taking trials and then they would come in the afternoon session and argue for interim relief. But this lawyer did both. Initially he would only argue interim matters. But when he saw that there is a lot of scope in final yearning, he just changed like fish and water. And he was one of the good cross examiners. I won't say the best for anyone because there are many. He was one of the good ones only in civil work to the point that at least in my court and he did exceptionally well. He really came about that way. So friends, I do not want to philosophize. I do not want to tell you that there must be hard work and that must be very curteous and keep your head down or any substance. I will be telling you about how you will do your legal work not only by style but also by substance. So if you allow me to share my presentation with you, I'll just get back in a minute. I hope you can see it. Okay. So I will be giving you soft skills for lawyers. I just present our class image so that the entire screen comes and on the top this file home insert is not shown up. Okay. Yeah, perfect. Now for lawyers as well as judges, I would say these are the five eyes which are very important. Integrity comes first of all because honesty in work is always appreciated in any profession. A lawyer is an officer of the court. He's a professional agent. He's an agent for his client but he works for a cause and that cause is the cause of justice. Second is impartiality for lawyers as well as for judges. Of course judges have to be impartial and be good to all but a lawyer also must be impartial and that is not part of generally. One of our very good lawyers, one of the best lawyers, the doer of the trial court, he is now 80 to 94 years old with 72 years practice. When he came once his opponent said he's a firm but a fair opponent. This is the true yardstick of his soft skill and soft skill on substance. The third is industry. You're always noticed. Your work is always remembered and please remember that just as lawyers talk about everybody else, judges also talk about lawyers. So if you're going to be good and make an impression, other judges will also come to know and that is the right way of growing then intelligence. Now, for a lawyer, intelligence would involve logical thinking, a seamless speech and a practical approach. You don't have to talk when it's not required. You have to talk and speak about everything that is required and that is the skill which must be learned. You need not be an orator but if you're going to be prepared in your matter then you're going to give a then you're going to give a very fine speech as I would say to the court. The last is independence of course, independence of thought and action. We take that for granted. We say that this is a free and fearless democracy and our judges are fearless, even lawyers are fearless. But we have to have the kind of thought which can be put across, the kind of action which can be emulated. Once that is done, all the five eyes are satisfied, I don't think you will need anything else. So friends, the desirable quality of lawyers, one is sensitization in work and sensitization means sensitivity for work. It means empathy for whoever is the victim. In a civil matter also, you have civil victims, victims of the other side, victims of the other side lawyer, victims of our adjournments, victims of our delays, whatever that is. And if a lawyer is sensitive enough and understands what must be done, then there'll be many things that he will automatically not do. And as I told you, judge is the captain of the court. Your preparation is important. So even for adjournments, it becomes very important that you are sensitive. Because so often, without the slightest thought for the other, adjournments could be asked. It may be granted to show that we are very impartial. We may grant some adjournments which are not required to be granted also. We give them the leeway. But the reputation of that lawyer will suffer. If you really want to come out to be good lawyers and have a reputation, you would not do that. The second very important thing in sensitization is gender appreciation. And I'm not saying that you must appreciate women. I'm not saying anything like that. But you must appreciate what women do and what women go through. When you are male lawyers, you will realize you got a mother or a wife at home who has done everything for you. Even if your wife or your mother is working, she has done a lot of things for you which you have not done in the house. But if you are a lady lawyer, you know that for your son, for the little children, for the parents, for her husband, she's got to do many things before she comes to court and comes on par with you. And ladies do come on par with men. One of the judges, when I was very, very young and one attorney told me to get the matter adjourned, I had read it and I didn't want to get it adjourned. But that was my brief. So I told the judge that and I said, I didn't say that I want an adjournment. I said, I have been asked to have an adjournment. And the judge was saying, you are more than a match for anyone. Go on. I went on. I liked it. So you see, these two things go together. So please remember, when you are working in a profession like ours, where we work in one building, so many hundreds of people, we must understand what others are going through. And of course, that is even for the litigants. But in your soft skills, it is mainly for the other side, for the lawyers who are working with you, for example, I know of a lawyer who said that he did not want juniors, his juniors to be women, because they will get married and go away, the usual refrain. And I told him how wrong he was, because his junior had made an impression on me. And I said, she will go far. So please appreciate correctly, not incorrectly. And I'm not asking you to molecule anyone. Then we go to the next aspect, the business principles of management. Now, these are the intelligence soft skills. One is non-value-added items or activities. You will realize there are many such things in our profession, unnecessarily letters are written, recipes are written, applications are made, orders are invited, all of these things. These are not skills. These are just survival techniques or techniques to show somebody that you've done some great work, but this is not any skill. If you would take these off, you will be able to go off to a flying start, because then you will be able to put what are called the big rocks, the real good things first. And that is what you can show. So show off when you are no off is also a skill. You can never show off when you are not a no off, when you are not prepared, but when you are, you can do that. Then is decentralization in your offices, in the court premises, wherever. Now, if you can decentralize the work, if you're not going to be able to do some particular work, you give it to your other friend, you give it to your junior. It always augurs well, because work finds its own level like water. It'll come to you. Even if you give up a brief, you know that that person knows that they've got a brief from you. So someday you will get that brief. So don't ever think that because you have got some matter and some trying to take them to your chest, it's not a skill. Please give off, decentralize, do be charitable. It's a very good skill. Then comes simplification. Again, another skill, simplification in arguments, for example. You give bullet points to the court, just one page, not even that the court will have to turn that page and you see the impression it will make. The judge will make all the notes against your bullet points, but he will never forget the bullet point or she will never forget that point. This is a simplistic work of having anything which is brief, concise and precise. The three things which are required of any smart lawyer. Then comes the core competence. The core competence would come when you have really reached a particular state because then you really are competent in that. But today even youngsters say they do only a particular kind of work. I'm a constitutional lawyer. I'm a corporate lawyer, whatever that is. If that is so and if you are also having some other work, pass it on so that you can really do well in what you are best suited, in which interests you the best, in which you have got to a case law in really in your mind, that becomes very important and always that core competence helps. Then comes the paradigm shift. If you have not done all of these, then you must have a real quantum leap, a real break from the past, you can say. That is a paradigm shift. So you decide that I think I have not done well in this. I have not done well as a smart lawyer who will sort of give bullet points to the court or I have been sort of a little unfair to gender, for example. The women who are working with me who are equally good but I stumped them, change over. It's a whole quantum leap and it will show you in such a great light. Then comes the appearance ethics. Now these appearances will be different in different courts. Like I told you about that lawyer who did very well in my court. I, for example, did not allow lawyers in the chamber and that was because of bad practices, very bad soft skills that a senior lawyer must have taught a junior lawyer. I will tell you about it in the next slide but keep this in mind that this is also an appearance ethic. So undesirable qualities. One is approaching the judge. Once I was a sessions judge. I was taking trials as well as bail matters. One particular bail matter was before me and was called out. The lawyer of the accused was not present in the court. The prosecutor told me about the case. The police was present. I heard them and I passed the order. Just a short order and I did not release him. When I was in the chamber in my lunch recess, a young lady lawyer comes into the chamber. She must have been allowed because she must have told my staff not that she was appearing in this matter or anything. Nobody knew that she was appearing. She sits in front of me and tells me that she has come in that sudden such a matter which was for bail in your court. I was stunned. I said, why did you come here? You had to come to the court. And she said, no, I would like to argue. I would like you to hear because I was not here, etc. I told her, please get up and get out. I will not change my order. You were not present in court and that has been recorded. And if you are appearing, you may tell your client that you did not appear and therefore bail has not been granted. And then I called my staff and I told them that we must change. If there are lawyers like this, we must change. Don't send any lawyer to my chamber alone. If both the lawyers are coming, fine, send them. Otherwise tell the lawyer to mention whatever you want in the court she will hear. And I used to hear at 11 o'clock and at 3 o'clock when we used to come for the sessions, anybody could really mention anything. But what I thought was that this lawyer wanted to spoil my reputation because she really came with a bad objective. And this is what many lawyers are supposed to be doing. There are judges who are saying that lawyers do that. I was in Canada in a seminar and we were asked to speak about various topics and lawyers of other Commonwealth countries also spoke about this aspect. And they said that they meet the court clerk or the judge and give a very wrong impression about the integrity of the judge. Now this they may be thinking is a soft skill, but I think it is hard land. It's not a soft skill. Now I would have told my brother and sister judges to take care of that lady lawyer. Others may tell me I was told once that a judge does this. And when I was a young judge I was told please take care because you may come into your chamber. He may talk anything with you and anything could have happened afterwards. He may go and tell anyone anything. And there's so many matters where some injunctions are a must and we would always pass that an order. And he was very smart. He would know that I would. I was so scared that even when we were all together in a in a in a lounge I would refrain from talking to him so that he would never come to me and he never did. So you see this could be bad training of certain lawyers. And unfortunately young lawyers who may not have you can say another senior to go to or who may not have known that his senior would have been like that may get trapped and may start their practice on the completely wrong foot. Such lawyers may make some money somewhere but they'll never make a name. And then we used to have I don't know if it is in all jurisdictions but in Bombay the municipal advocates the PPs the GPs etc even the CBIPOs used to come to meet us as judges. I never thought that this was happening. And it didn't matter to me because I was not going to be carried away. But these lawyers think that you know we have to tell them and I said you are going to appear in my court every day because now I'm taking same municipal matters. So one municipal advocate will always be there. I know who you are. And on the contrary it became worse because whilst they came to meet me I gave them my directions. And I said please be prepared at all times. And if suppose there are two lawyers who are arguing I will not even look at you. I will not even call upon you. But when I call upon you I want your effing every single time. So I was happy that she came and she was unhappy that she came. It was not a soft skill it was just done because it was always done without thinking. This happens with PPs and GPs also. But when I became a CBI court judge which generally we are when we are senior judges and by the time I knew many things my associate told me that the director of CBI from Delhi wants to meet you. And that is their practice. All right I said if it is their practice you can come and meet me. But since I had this notice I prepared five six things which I wanted them to do. This poor man was really stumped. He thought that we will only have tea. I never offered him tea. I only offered him work. And he went back but he did it. And my court streamlining became better. So I thought I had the soft skill but that was not his soft skill. Now friends you all would be trial lawyers as I would say. And a trial lawyer is a complete lawyer said Mr. Sirvai the old senior Sirvai also though he was not a trial lawyer. So trial lawyers require to argue also and they require to cross-examine also. Now what do you do in a trial is very important for these kind of skills. One is that if there is a case for oral argument oral agreement and there is going to be a trial always remember to recreate the scene. It's a very nice way of showing how that oral agreement came into being. Now we may have oral agreements for say specific performance suits. We may have oral agreements to show that a particular thing was executed on that day. Somebody forged or somebody told me to sign on the dotted line or any such thing. All of these things don't ask the witness. I put it to you that this happened. I put it to you that that happened. Tell the witness come please tell me how did that happen. I'll give you an example. I had a very interesting matter in the family court between a Hindu wife and a Muslim husband and because they were from different religions obviously there were some problems. Now this girl decided to end her marriage. She started dating somebody else an extremely fine man who always came with her to court but she did not give me an honest thing that I don't want to go on with this man. I would have instantly given her the divorce and tried to see that she got her freedom back. She said that he were never married that he forged the marriage Nikanama as they call it. Now this document was in Urdu language. This document has signature in the middle of the page and she said that she had she was forced to sign and that is how the document came to be fabricated. I recreated the scene. I said where did you go and where was it? So she started telling me that and by the way that that that man did not have a lawyer. So I my duty was double. So I was also putting her questions which in any case I can put as a judge and I said okay I said you went to a lawyer's office and this happened. He was telling me that he'll get me a ration card but then he made me sign. I said oh you made you sign and you didn't see the rest of the paper? He said no I didn't see anything. I only saw this place. He told me sign here so I signed. I said how did you not see that page? So she said there were many books on the lawyer's table. Okay I said now you show me how the books were kept on your lawyer's table when he told you to sign and how you signed over the books. She could not show that. She tried doing that. I recorded her demeanor. I recorded whatever she had told me how she had signed and I told her to sign another page like that. The signature never came out. Now you see friends I would tell you whenever you get an oral agreement recreate okay you will find out the truth. Now whoever is right whoever is wrong I'm not talking about that. Now the documents in confrontation another thing that lawyers don't know or they don't do. There are some documents which are required to prove your case which you must show in your list of documents you must offer inspection. They will take inspection and only then can you rely upon very elementary everybody knows. But people put all the documents together. Now there are some documents which will disprove the case of the other side. There will be some documents that you will get after the if you are a plaintiff after the written statement is filed because you'll say oh my god this is false. On the contrary look this is the thing. Never put that in your list of documents. You don't require that to prove your case. So you keep it for the cross examination of the other side. Suppose the plaintiff's case is false and the defendant's one wants to show that there is something like that. He doesn't have to show anything in his written statement also and in his list of documents or if in a bit of documents also. He has to simply deny in his written statement that that case is not true and then confront the plaintiff in the cross examination. Then beginning the cross examination. In the beginning you must require preparation. So when the evidence is going on of say some other witness or of the witness where you are called upon to cross examine midway or if the evidence in chief is being recorded and if you have prepared you must start as soon as the evidence in chief is stopped. Many lawyers today have this style of asking for adjournments. One is before because they are not prepared because if they are not prepared they can't ask a single question properly. But one is because everybody else is doing that work and that is very wrong because all are doing the wrong thing. So if all do the wrong thing and you do it it's wrong. If you do the right thing but nobody does it also it's right. So you must be very prepared when you have to begin. I had one matter like this long years ago when I was a lawyer and I used to take down all the points everything and to whatever they call you know what is it called to tie loose ends as they would say this lawyer took needless amount of time and he was sort of you know getting absolutely on our nerves the other side lawyer. He would ask very few questions and then say no next time I'm not prepared etc two three times it went on and ultimately he finished tying his loose ends they like they remain loose I thought because he had hardly anything to say he should have asked some few questions and went away because I think on that day he had some other matter. Now the client was in the box and I was in the court. I quietly got up and I told the court that I can cross examine. So the judge said start and I started and I asked him six seven eight questions which were the most important questions even out of the cuff there was nothing like introduction or anything. I just wanted to take that chance and I got so many admissions on the first day because one that lawyer did not care for his client and two he had a bad way of just delaying. So he thought that now this one date is gone another date will come after some four five weeks. I got the best answers on that. Now proceeding against persons who are not accused this is the skill of a judge as well as a lawyer. Quite often there are some kind of conducive investigations or some kind of corruption or plain neglect in criminal matters especially and some important person is not made and accused. As a lawyer of the other side as a lawyer even of the defendant that is the accused or as a prosecutor you must find out who the main person is and apply for making him be accused. And if a judge listening to me under 319 you must say simplicity of procedure. This is what happens. I'll give you a very telling instance. It was a case of human trafficking. It was not my case. I've heard about it and I have felt about it. It was sort of like that. There was a girl who was trafficked and she was rehabilitated by some NGO after being rescued. Then after some two three years she got a summons to go to court and she went to the NGO. The NGO gave her all kinds of solace etc like how we have got now in Poxo and went with her to court. One woman, old woman came up to her. This is what I've been told and I'm narrating to you as if to say it happened to me because it is so stark. And this woman tells her. So she was surprised. She kept quiet. And this NGO lady asked her who is she? She said she was a cook in our brothel. She never did anything wrong to us. She was only cooking food for all of all those inmates and butter. So they were wondering why and then they realized and unfortunately a victim is always forgotten and victims don't have the conduct of the case in a criminal justice system. They never knew where is the accused. They were waiting for the brothel keeper. He never came. They realized that this woman was the only accused. She gave her evidence and then when she had to identify she said she's not the person. So this woman was acquitted and the case was closed. Now that soft skill which is actually a very, very skillful, intelligent knowledge of law. The court did not have. You should have immediately called the brothel keeper who's evidence she gave. But the brothel keeper was not even an accused at that time. So you know, these are the things which require skill. They are not, they don't happen every day. But if you read the corners of the law, you will realize that it could be done. Okay. Then reconciling child rights with settled procedure. That is also a soft skill. The rights of the children are very important. If they are child witnesses and child victims, then how you can reconcile their rights with our procedure. Now you see, you know that there is this in-camera child. It's no good for the child because the child is alone. There are all sorts of people whom the child fears in the court. But if you have a different procedure, a chamber practice for the chamber procedure, then it's a smaller thing. You have the trial in the chamber. You ask the court if you are a lawyer that you have this trial in the chamber. Of course, now we are very well settled in video conferencing like this today. So you can have it and it won't cost much. But earlier it would cost a lot and those infrastructure will not be available in various courts. Then you must go against that settled procedure. Then for online arbitration, for example, you can have cross-examinations. Now I have come across many persons who say, no, we don't want cross-examinations online. I think it is a completely misguided fear. I have done cross-examinations in arbitrations. And what I do is, you see, you can see me and you can see behind me now, you do not know who is in front of me. So if there is a witness who is going to answer, you don't know who is in front of him. You put one or even two devices right behind this computer, the entire room will be social. And those two rooms, those two devices can be the room in front of the arbitrator. So we can have arbitrations online. We can have adjudications on that. Just a simple thing of technology will change the whole scenario. All of these matters can start coming up and they are waiting on, then not waiting for cross-examination. That is other things are of course going on. Then the closure of the case without trial is also another substitute. You see, there are many civil suits also, which don't require trial. But people don't know, they feel that in every single thing order 18, rule 4 is required. It's not like that. For example, order 7, rule 11 is not required in all matters, but you can apply for rejection of a plaint in some of the matters. Similarly, you can have no oral evidence in several civil suits. It is interpretation of documents required, questions of law required. Just decide, tell the court that you will only argue. All other facts are admitted. And only those disputed facts would go into evidence. So when there are no disputed facts, there is no need to create one. Now you see, you have got all this what we call DPL suits, due process of law. So when there are possession suits and you say that without following due process of law, don't dispossess me. It's called a DPL suit. As soon as the process of law is followed and a civil suit is filed for recovery, this suit comes to an end. You have to immediately say, no, I've seen hundreds of suits lying like this, lawyers wanting to cross-examine and that. I have not understood why. There is no such skill. Then there are labor disputes in civil law. So, you know, sort of striking, et cetera, why you, where you should not strike. Now all these are known laws. You have a right to strike that is a fundamental and that is a constitutional right. You have not a right to destroy property, whatever that is. So you can always say that these kinds of things can be done by way of some kind of consent terms. There is no need for a trial. It's a soft skill. Then there are some suits which are amenable to preliminary and final decree. Not only final decree as we generally always have, but most of the lawyers don't do that and don't know that I suppose. What they do is they go on and on with interim matters and then they file huge affidavits of evidence, etc. Now, if there is a partition suit, if there is an administration suit, if there is a partnership dispute, what happens is that you can pass a preliminary decree, suit for accounts, mean profits, whatever that is. So when there is, let us say an administration suit, the skill of the lawyer, plaintiff or defendant would be to get the preliminary decree on the first date, especially the plaintiff. Now a man has died living four sons. You know that if there is intersted succession and a civil suit is filed, the property will have to be divided by four amongst the four sons. Take a preliminary decree immediately. And then the best practice is, then you say now that our shares have been determined, one-fourth, one-fourth, one-fourth, one-fourth, let us see the property and take which one-fourth that we want. The very best way of doing that is by mediation and not by the way the civil procedure tells you to follow, that is go to the commissioner for taking accounts etc. So you go to the second step, which becomes the last and the final step. If you do this, you will realize that you rise in your self-esteem. You will rise in the esteem of others. Now I would say desirable qualities of judges. I don't know if there are judges listening to me, but just in case they are, in the procedure, some management skills are also soft skills. For example, this charge of board, that we get a board of 100 matters, we know that we are not going to be able to even touch more than 20 matters. Where is the need to go through the whole board, call it out, give dates, do all that clerical work? I never like doing that work. I would take up my best and the most important matter first, which was my part third matter. If it goes on, I discharge the rest of the board. So people have time, even if they are not prepared with their affidavits, they have time until the next day, then they have time again. So when ultimately the matter reaches, they will be prepared. By that time, affidavits will have come and without that clerical work is done. But for lawyers, there is a different advantage. The lawyer goes away, he doesn't waste his time standing there in my court. Now they can see the matter on the website and never come to court. So the proficiency of work increases with that skill. A little is very small thing to do. Then mentioning of matters. I don't know in different jurisdictions, but in the Bombay jurisdiction, there's so much of mentioning of matters, which takes up a nighttime half an hour. Now some people say even one hour, that is 10% of the work. So it would be at least one month in a year. And in an average life of 10 years of a high court judge, it would be one year. Where is the need to do that work? I would say take whichever day you want as the first date. Once it comes up on my board and it reaches, I will give the dates afterwards. Simple thing, a skill and everyone benefits. Then there is final hearing and not admissions. Very often for reputations, for revisions, for AOs, that is the appeal from orders, etc. There is this admission work. There's no requirement of admission work. If everybody knows that all are prepared, things can be seen, immediately we can take it up for final hearing. You as a lawyer must tell the court that you take it up for final hearing because you are prepared and finish up that matter and see how much your clients respect you, appreciate you and they will come back to you because you'll finish the matter quickly. Then the grouping of matters. Now this is of course done by the courts. So grouping of criminal matters, bank matters, everything is differently done. Now I'll give you two examples for example, tenancy. There was one judge in a tenancy court. He realized that one landlord has got say for example, ten tenants in a building and he has filed suits against five of them for eviction or he has got suits by two, three tenants for declaration. What he did was he put all those matters of that one building together and he said, I will hear it on the same date and he reported that the tenants would come in the same taxi to my court. What a fine practice. What a lovely skill it is. Insurance. One judge, a district judge told us that when he was taking MSC matters, what he did was he called the insurance companies and he told the insurance companies that look, there are many matters which are arguable. I'm not talking about those matters. There are many matters where there are accidents, where a young man has gone, there's a young widow or their old parents and things like that and there is really some disablement. Why don't you at least try to settle those matters so that the other matters we will hear and we will decide on the question of law and interpretation of your insurance content. The insurance companies agree. They said on one condition that our orthopedic surgeon will determine the disablement. If he says it is so many such percentage of disablement, we will immediately pay that much. Many matters got settled. Another lovely way of having a skill of managing the court. We can do that with banks. We can do that in several criminal matters also. We can take up certain things together. I had a matter of telephone frauds. So it was in one telephone exchange. Many, many people got telephones out of turn by one corrupt IS officer who took money on the ground that they had had trouble. All doctor's certificates, fake certificates were produced. Because I took 19 cases together, I made a columnist statement. I realized that all these things happened in a matter of about two months when he was the IS officer. He was an accused in my court and I convicted him only once, only for one year. But I finished off those 19 matters and I think this required not the knowledge of law but some skill of hope. Once I had a robber, I convicted him. He said that he was not a robber and he tried to rob, he has not robbed, etc. Now this policeman had made four cases. I told him that I have convicted you in one matter so as per the practice now I will not take up your other three matters. He said no, you take it up and you give one judgment. I said I will not do what you tell me to do but if you want me to take it up, I'll take it up. So I took up and I took them up gun by gun but continuously because he wanted and mind well he did not have a lawyer. So there was nothing like adjournment. He says you finish off this work. When I saw all the panchnamas and I kept all the three matters together on my table for judgment I saw that the panchnamas were made in one handwriting by one police officer on a given day and even the rubber stamps were sort of you know, on numbers of pages, page number one, page number two, then it becomes fainter and fainter, then again it becomes dark in the other one, then again it becomes fainter. I acquitted him in all the three matters and I wrote about what was happening. I would never have known this if I had not kept those matters together. So even if I could not give the judgments at the time and even if I keeping them together is very good. Even civil suits whenever you have matters against a particular party, you know that three, four matters always keep them together unless of course you have such a bad case that you yourself don't want the judge to know the truth but at least one of you will have a good case and you can keep them together in a group and then the settlement and mediation also becomes very easy. Then priority and disposal whenever you have a very fine case insist that there could be priority and for a judge I would say that you must give priority on merits. If there is an open and shut case put it on the board and say it is for final hearing nothing else is required you are the captain of the court then practicality. Now there was an I was an investor court it was a criminal jurisdiction and a civil jurisdiction. I thought that really the investors who have been defrauded want their money back they don't want the accused to go to jail. So I used to exercise my civil jurisdiction only first if it could be settled if they can get even part of their money they are happy and I would not exercise the criminal jurisdiction because then I would say there is no menstrual and I would discharge it. If not of course I have gone through criminal trials I have convicted and sentenced also and they have been in jail. Then one very interesting thing in Mumbai the patron duty is Lord Ganesh. So in Ganpati festival days there are many people who may not come they are busy with other things that apart the policemen don't bring the accused because they are on manobas duty because there are crowds and crowds on the road. So what I decided to do was that on those days those 11 days of Ganpati festival I would generally have criminal matters if I'm taking a criminal session at that time of course with where accused are released on bail because then that accused has to come to mind and the police will not require to get the accused but I realized that when I did not arrest the policeman like that and tell them to get the accused which they are not getting to my court because I know that they are busy elsewhere. If there was one accused who would be in custody and other five accused are on bail then I have to go on with the trial they would bring that accused in a taxi. So I think it was skillful. Then there are other desirable qualities in interpretation there must be creativity for lawyers and judges child victim of sexual abuse how do you take their evidence etc which I told you in the chamber etc and once father was a guardian now what happened with that father had three children twins and one elder daughter his wife died she did not die in his house she died in her matrimony her own marital her own mother's home and the children she had taken there the grandparents did not give the children back this man was very poor he was working as a salesman in a shop selling vessels he was in Bombay these girls were brought to Bombay were in Bombay but he would he was otherwise living somewhere near Baroda Bellasenora some such place. Now the case of these grandparents was that he is a vagabond he is not earning at all and he just wants to take away the children because he wants to give the children in for adoption and make money this man was saying they are my children why will I do that I want to have my children at least give me one child you know I'm all alone my wife has died etc. Now I had to see whether he really was a vagabond or not whether he was working anywhere so I said where are you working and what are you earning of course a poor man also is entitled to custody and guardianship of his children so his lawyer said that he is working in one shop he is a salesman I can't show anything except the visiting card of his employer of the shop he sent the visiting card up on my day that dies now I really reckoned I realized that this man is not capable of producing a fabricated visiting card he has given me he never even knew that I'm going to ask him this kind of a question it has just come very abruptly I returned the card to him and I said phone him on this number so this man this advocate very innocently takes out his mobile and he phones him and passes on the phone to me and I talk to him I said hello and you know what I heard on the other line the boss or whoever he was in the shop very uncouth voice telling me I knew that this man was working I knew that he was earning so he was earning very little and he was very poor he was not a vagabond and he said that I've come to Bombay not because I love Bombay but because I love my children because they were brought the children here why how will I live in Baroda so I'm here and I told them just now sit down and settle otherwise I'll pass the order we made some interim settlement and after that fully the matter has been settled now there was a case of photographs very interesting case there was a case that the woman said that I am in possession of this flat and the neighbouring flat my husband and my mother-in-law are in possession and that is in my mother-in-law's name this is in my name the husband and the mother-in-law wanted to say that she is not in possession of anything we are in possession of both the flats now what they did was actually they would have had the key to the flat these were interconnected flats also but she was in she wanted only one flat they came into this flat in her flat and in the on the dining table they kept a lot of dishes and everything and took photographs of themselves so the mother the sister all were there in that dining room what they forgot was that there was a tiffin box of four dabbas on the dining table they showed me the photographs and they said we are right in the house I took the photographs I said I'm accepting the photographs how come this this the tiffin box is on the dining table we never keep a tiffin box on our dining table we bring only the food in our dishes and based on that document only I granted them then once I had a matter of two brothers they had their properties divided they entered into consent terms one was the property of the father which both of them got one was the property of the brother with the father and that brother said that half is nine and half is of the fathers so you will get one quarter and I will get three quarters this is the way they settled very fine then mother and sister was in the village they brought the mother and sister and the mother and sister got the house of the village which the brothers didn't want to take now for some reason they did not get an a decree in terms of this consent terms and it remained for quite a few months and you know the real estate properties in Bombay went up the defendant then did not want to settle the plaintiff wanted the consent terms the decree to be passed in terms of the consent now once I was hearing them the plaintiff said that actually he only brought the mother and the sister also from the village and he only took them to the interpreter to translate this consent terms because they don't know English so it suddenly struck me I told my associate to call the translator she called the translator she came very quickly about 15-20 minutes in my court in the meantime I allowed them to argue then I heard the try I asked the translator I said see this had happened about 10 months before so it's not something that everyone can forget so I said would you be able to remember this this is the consent this is the consent terms you have translated so she immediately saw and she told me yes and I've signed it and she said that see ma'am every page we are supposed to initial on the top left hand corner and the bottom right hand corner and I have initial these are my initials see every page I have initial I said okay will you be able to identify that person who came to you she said ma'am I don't know I said okay you just try turn around I showed her the plaintiff she said no and I showed her the defendant and she saw yes yes ma'am I think yes then again she saw the plaintiff she said no I said okay I took down this I said I'm passing an injunction the whole suit must come to an end on that day itself this is the very best independent evidence but lawyers want to go on filing affidavits after affidavits and they spoil the case of their own client's also is that skillful there are some cases of electricity bills they show the possession of the plaintiff now once I saw that there was a there were various buildings of Mada that is Maharashtra housing and area development authority in Bombay I don't know about other jurisdictions but they are similar kind of properties now there are some people who break open the Mada locks and go into the premises then they get the electricity bills of that flat you know the little lights which they must be having because the electricity is consumed so the electricity bills come and then they show us the electricity bills and say we are in possession now protect our possession and sometimes they take the electricity bills from the L drop when the flight is closed they get the injunction and then they enter upon the problem in one such case I was shown electricity bills to pre electricity bills no other documents and I saw that the electricity was not consumed I said the suit must be dismissed no interim relief at all if you are living there and if you are possession you would have consumed some electricity then one matter was of probate father mother daughter son daughter-in-law and grandchildren in one flight there were fights as usual between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law so the father so the husband wife on one side and that unmarried daughter was with the mother there was a case in the cooperative court because it was in a cooperative society they entered into some consent terms that was a workable arrangement they were to use the kitchen at different hours and the hall and tv at some different hours and then they were be they would be in that respective bedrooms that was the workable arrangement now in such a scenario a mother is bound to be advised by the lawyer to make a will because she wants to protect the daughter she made a will now there was another daughter who was married and that daughter's husband was one of the attesting witnesses who was examined in my court when i was granting probate in the high court and the son produces the consent terms and says we have settled with the mother but i said that is a workable arrangement it is a temporary arrangement your case in the cooperative court is not dispersed off on that document i granted the probate because that document showed that the mother has to make a will and she has made a will of course there were other things also in her favor like the son-in-law himself not wanting the property for his wife but for his sister-in-law that the mother wanted to give so there were things like that several maintenance orders also can be passed like that you would be having many maintenance applications in family courts and things like that sometimes you can have or other quite often we have husbands who are in jobs it is very difficult for them not to pay maintenance because you can tell the court and if you are a judge you can yourself do it that if you don't pay maintenance for say three months then i will tell the boss the office the company to deduct it from yourself the husbands don't like to show that they would pay the maintenance one interesting case i had under the pcp and dt act it was a gynaecologist who used to do this tests you know for female fetus eye for sonography tests which is illegal her sonography machine was sealed but because it's a big machine the police kept it in her clinic only but newly sealed she applied she said it is junking because it is an electronic machine and surely the court won't want it to junk etc etc so allow me to use it i said where is the i o correct i said you are right that an electronic machine must be used otherwise it junks i told the i o take it away from her clinic and keep it in a municipal hospital so many poor patients sonography will be done when they don't have it and the machine will not jump but the gynaecologist will not have it until she is admitted then one i had an explosives matter that is under the explosives act explosive substances act he was a he was a katari resident and he had taken firecrackers in a slipper stitched up in the cabin baggage and he was caught at the airport and because there were crackers it was explosive substances he was under this the lawyer was very smart or so he thought i didn't think he was smart take up this matter he is a foreign national he wants to go away to his country so you know once you release him he will just go to his country i said okay i'll take it up provided you come after five o'clock which he would never do otherwise he said yes because this was his client's grief i took up the matter it was an appeal he was rightly convicted i heard him i confirmed the conviction and i said that as per his own desire he should be sent away to katar directly from the gym now these are the ways in which lawyers and judges can think on their toes and that is their greatest skill you will surely have some matters like this and if you can do that and be creative you will really rise in your self-esteem i would say then there are other desirable qualities one is hand holding and power balancing for judges there is restorative justice in the criminal justice system now this bambi film i don't know if you know it is a Walt Disney film of deer a deer is killed and the skin is taken out and a drum is made and the drummer beats on that drum and the little one the young of the deer comes as soon as the drummer comes sees the mother knows that this is the skin of the mother which is being beaten up and when they go away the deer goes away now there was a case of poaching in a forest and this is an american court i'm talking about i think it was in chicago or somewhere there so this poacher who used to take away animals and skin them for leather and fur and all of these things which is illegal he was convicted and the court said you watched bambi film in the jail and they changed him over of course he was in the jail he served his sentence whatever way and parole and whatever but he was shown that film and he was a changed man he realized what animals are then interesting another case in america new york title of walk up there was a title of walk up between two towers he used to walk now this he didn't cause any harm to anyone but still it is an offense in america because it may harm you you cannot cannot do a thing which harms you so he was arrested and he had to be convicted but it was a very good skill he was a tightrope walker and on the on skyscrapers he was doing it so the sentence was that you will never do it this way caution and that you will do tightrope walking in new york central park at a height of only five feet and show the children of the schools how to do tight tightrope walking now this was this was this was really a restorative justice because he would then realize that children will also have to be protected that way etc a smaller case drunk driver in america again he was taken in custody and he did not even realize how many lives he has spoiled because of his drunk driving one man dies and the entire family suffers he was asked to take uber vala whatever apps and to see the sites of those people and he also was changed we had a ragging case i was on a division bench it was a private complaint as well as a police complaint two cases going on side by side one girl in one of the colleges the whole ragging system went so totally hawaii she was killed she died and this father was so distraught and he wanted so much justice he gave up his job he was a government servant and he was just pursuing this basis in that scenario we could not tell them anything but we realized that those are the kind of cases where you can do restorative justice by telling the prosecution there is no need to really go for sentencing and telling the accused who are also college students only that you will come out of this kind of phobia give lectures to other students they have orientations in american colleges they show them that but this advantage of the demerits of ragging that could have been done but we didn't do that of course because that was not a case where the father could have taken that there was one habeas purpose petition where a man came he is a husband and he wants custody of his wife we learned he understood that he was a trafficker so we were on a division then of course we had our own juniors our own interns we told them separate both of them we separated them the man was sent to my brother judge and his intern the lady was sent to my interns we said ask them questions find what is their life and we went away to court this happened in the recess in the evening we collated this evidence we confirmed that he was a trafficker he was in gurgaon but she didn't know hindi she spoke some language very little close to hindi but we could not understand very well but it was sort of not hindi hindi it happened to be bangali hindi she didn't tell us that she was found in puna in the red light area that batwar peth which they say i called the police woman and said keep her for one night safely with you tomorrow bring her to court and i told him brother we both told him that he will have to get various documents and then he will get the so we asked him various questions and we said okay what about your income tax statements etc and he showed me the pan card etc i said we'll have to get all of these he said okay he will get okay i said today he will she will stay here you go away he went away next day we got the matter in the night i phoned up one NGO who work for traffic children i said can you take one girl i think it is like this she said of course madam i'll come to your court tomorrow we called out the matter the husband never came the wife was there brought by that lady police officer we gave her in custody of the NGO then we kept the matter after two weeks two weeks husband never came with this mr petition the girl remained with the NGO after a long time when i went on one of my workshops for these crimes of trafficking etc that NGO lady was there she said ma'am she's now been tailoring and she tells us that ma'am saved my life so you see these are not some great things but these are things which you can think about which when you are appearing as lawyers also you can think and tell the court and those would be the real skills of course then there are some administrative soft skills which is not for lawyers which is for judges who are in charge of administration we have got synopsis in boundary the pleadings are so cumbersome no clarity no brevity no precision it runs into hundred and plus pages that we want synopsis now the synopsis are also so large that now we have said that to give us chronology of events and dates then there is this half day trial and half day interim relief which i told you works very well even for it petitions and things like that this half day thing works well then there's something like an evening assignment in Bombay there are some lawyers who work only in evening assignment and there are matters where they will take it to the evening judge and the morning judge will be different on the next day so they may get an order of injunction which then goes on and on and on or they may be released on bail and they may have gone or something like that you know so we thought that this is a great melee there are too many lawyers now doing that and when we had the principal judge a very fine principal judge the same one whom i spoke about he said that one judge must do this work so that everything comes to that judge now nobody wanted to do that i said i will be for several months only i was the evening judge i said i want only the most urgent matters all the matters job they didn't want to come to me they knew i will not give the relief and if i don't give the relief the lawyers would be saying okay now put it tomorrow and i'll apply you know you've taken my evening now tomorrow you cannot do so this whole melee came down first class administrative skill some are order copies when i was a family court judge of course i didn't do it anywhere else only as a family court judge we passed directional orders so these orders are required from day to day and there's short orders i used to tell my stenographer to make an order as soon as i sign take out two copies i would sign both the copies and give it away to the parties no no what is that called computerized copies and no department and nothing on the same day they got books no much great work also then there's auto-texting of orders that auto-texting lawyers can do very very easily because they repeat and repeat and repeat the same thing in all the matters but judges also have to do that so all those little little orders like withdrawal the consent terms etc everything was auto-texted and i would be doing it with my service to that i would say whenever the lawyer comes call it up in between if i have the time so you see there are many many ways of doing these things it is never exhausted i would say the desired action is that in college curriculum you should be taught soft skills just as dr harish said we taught through the mental soft skills then there should be mentoring and internship by lawyers as well as judges so that good practices are annulated i know one of my interns when one lawyer was going on and on and on and it was really very nasty and i came back exhausted in the evening she's telling me ma'am you should be shot dead no i said i am dying we are living in a democratic society what are you talking this is not talibanization you know ma'am you're telling him and you're telling him and he's not listening so i told her that even if you don't learn anything else from me you have learned this please don't do that in any court so then there should be teamwork lawyers and judges must work as a team don't think that judges are your enemies they want to know the truth they want to help the right party you may be appearing for the wrong party you may be appearing for the right party please understand that and take the matters as they come of course you have to appear best for as best as you can for your old client and then leave it at that but there should be this interaction and that can be only if you have got cordial relationships and then we can work that out then there should be sensitization of lawyers also in judicial academies i have always said because lawyers are great stakeholders in our system and it should be a privilege to be called to any judicial academy they have not done that so far i don't know if they will do but it's a desired action i would stop at this and say if you want to lead if you want to become a leader of the people you must work behind them you must keep your juniors in front of you you must keep your opponents beside you and of course the judge will be above thank you so ma'am the fact that you kept everyone glued and we gazed from the fact that we thought that dr. sheik he will only give the introduction but he was also glued he thought that since he's been well connected with the judicial setups of system why not take the flips of the legal thought skills and what could be a better combination when he's a doctor who is a good psychiatrist and at the same time understanding the legal perspectives will give a run off run to the public at large before i conclude i will ask dr. sheik he what is his views on this i think what a beautiful sharing of so many anecdotes a lot of creative insights inside anecdotes a lot of thinking on one's feet is what ma'am shared at the same time across the presentation one team which came was empathy empathy and empathy she was also Sherlock Holmes when she said i will recreate the scene and she was also a mother and also a firm administrator and that that i think without without telling us what to do she has shared so many insights subtly subliminally which can enter ours then and i still remember so many of her quotes which she which i heard when she is to speak and i had the fortune of listening to them i think i think i think there are the small quotes beneath in green and blue and the last one if you have to lead you have to stand stand stand behind them the best thing i i i i learned was the judge is the captain of the ship he is there in the ship and he goes down with the ship thank you madam for such a lovely insightful and provocative presentation which will make each one of us in prospect not only lawyers but even doctors and laymen like me thank you ma'am thank you doctor because this is all a part of my book yeah lovely ma'am lovely lovely lovely book is about to be launched in the month of march no no not that not that that is my second book okay the book which has already been published and which is available tangible justice is my memories of my cases and what happened with me including something like you know that lawyer coming into my chamber and i was really very much stunned that a very loyal young girl can do such a thing all of these things i've taken from my book thank you ma'am i will i will get the book i'll ask my son to buy buy all my book just now he's sitting next to me i will definitely read that ma'am definitely thanks a lot ma'am it was a great learning and i was there also thank you ma'am i can definitely say that what justice roshan dalvi said that as a good absorbent you also have to be good thief that you should be able to steal things the way dr. shetty would steal the quotes the good antidotes and good thought processes i feel that everybody can actually steal that and keep it in the memories and everyone stay safe stay blessed and i was talking to dr. shetty before we go in life to the effect that things are getting worse and the only way is to have precautions and preventions and that is the best way thank you and dr. shetty is showing the history take your bag your booster dog and please wear your mask thank you thank you thank you friends good night