Justice Gautam Patel leaves after his eight week eventful assignment heading the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court. He began his stint on a very right note by declining to move around with a PSO (Personal Security Officer) which by protocol he was entitled to.
Over the last few weeks, many of us must have improved our vocabulary if nothing else, due to Justice Gautam Patel’s superb command of the English language. Shakespeare came alive in the Court room. Being very outspoken, versatile, no nonsense, candid as ever but always with a sense of humour Justice Patel brought in a breath of fresh air to the Judiciary in the State. The very razor-sharp and knowledgeable Gautam Patel could never be taken for a ride.
Justice Patel brought in some much needed discipline and decorum in the functioning of the Court. In his short stint he disposed a lot of matters on a variety of issues, many pertaining to the environment. Having kept the Advocates, litigants and even the Court staff on their very toes. In his first very few days in Goa he heard the matter pertaining to the illegal public meeting held by Amit Shah at the Dabolim Airport, in another matter the Government servant cum activist Kashinath Shetye got an earful. The stranded Lucky 7 Casino ran out of luck with Justice Patel’s intolerance on the ecological damage done to the Miramar beach.
His parting shot at the Government was the quashing and setting aside of that flawed decision of the Government to shift the cases before the National Green Tribune (NGT) from Pune to Delhi. The High Court bench comprising Justices Gautam Patel and Nutan Sardessai praised the state, its people, and its influence on the culture of India.
“It is a kind and gentle land, of a kind and gentle people. And it is also a land that, given its small size and small population, has had a wholly disproportionate influence on our art, culture, language, music, literature, architecture, history, design and more (even food, for many of what we consider our staples first came from here). Its greatest asset is one: its environment and its ecology — its rivers and riverbanks, its beaches, its lakes and clear streams, its dense forests, its low hills and fertile fields, its boulders and even trees shrouded with moss and vines and lichen in the rains, its ridiculously brilliant sunsets,” part of the order read.
If Gautam Patel was here on a longer assignment, it would have immensely benefited a wrecked and sinking Goa for this is a land worth fighting for. In May 2017 he authored a piece for DAKSH, a civil society organisation that undertakes research and activities to promote accountability and better governance in India. In it one of the things he said was: “There’s no such thing as a small case.”
It would be too much to expect that Gautam Patel be a bench mark for the Judiciary and that every judge aspire to attain his level of performance. But we need to be optimistic and hope against hopes.
