Coronavirus: High Court Chief Justice appeals to Lawyers and Litigants to Adopt Social Distancing

Chief Justice of Madras high court A P Sahi has appealed to lawyers, litigants and people visiting the high court premises to reaffirm belief in the adage “prevention is better than cure.” He requested them to believe that distancing and preventive measures can easily be undertaken to meet the medical emergency caused by Covid-19 outbreak.

"The virtue of a disciplined life is at times very hard to inculcate. For example, the art of resisting temptations. The most difficult and trying discipline is how to resist temptations. One of such temptations is basic to human life, and that is, their desire to associate," Chief Justice Sahi said in his four-page communication titled 'A Thought and A Sincere Request.'

This freedom of association is a hard won freedom and any curtailment counters temptation to associate and socialise. But there is a higher value in life that was enunciated by French philosopher and mathematician Descartes who said that the philosophy of life lies in understanding what to sustain and what to abstain from, he added.

"This is more so when we and the entire world are uncertain about the dynamic situation that has erupted with an unprecedented threat extended to human life with no positive medical remedy yet..." he said.

Asserting that prevention is the diagnosis of the hour and the remedy is to avoid congestion and maintain distance, Chief Justice Sahi said, “We have to realise that we can now care for ourselves and for others by maintaining a distance howsoever paradoxical it might appear to us.”

"We have become vulnerable and we are now largely dependent on the considerate behaviour towards each other," he said.

Noting that to give up something and surrender what is most precious in life is ultimate liberation of the mind and to some it is salvation, Justice Sahi added that social distancing may appear to be onerous but the severity of the situation demands stringency.

"It is not to quit life or stop living. It is to secure your life as well as that of others. You have to prove worthy of the situation as what can be corrected is really in your hand," the Chief Justice said.

“We all have to stand together as this duty and responsibility is not only governmental but it is also social and more particularly individual,” he said concluding his appeal

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Pic by Toi