For the first time, the Supreme Court court will open a week early after this year’s summer recess that starts on May 15. This reduction in holidays was announced in a notification issued by the court’s Registrar (Administration).The notification dated February 21 said ‘‘.the summer vacation of the court for the year 2006 shall be for seven weeks commencing from Monday, May 15 to July 2, 2006 instead of May 15 to July 9, 2006 as notified earlier and the Court shall resume its sitting after the vacation on Monday, July 3, 2006.’’ As another first, this year’s summer recess will also see Special Benches sitting to hear old pending cases. This is apart from the regular vacation benches.What makes the cut in holidays interesting is that there has been a persistent demand for increasing the working days of the apex court. Even the Justice Malimath panel on reforms in Criminal Justice System had recommended a reduction in number of court holidays.Describing the vacations a legacy of the colonial past when the scorching Indian summer forced the British officers posted here to return to the cooler environs of Europe, the Committee asked ‘‘now that Englishmen have gone and we have become masters of our own country, is there any justification to continue the legacy?’’It, however, argued against abolition of vacations keeping in mind the onerous responsibility of judges and their need for time to update themselves, given the intellectual work involved. But the demand for reducing the number of holidays never found much favour with the Judge community. They had been maintaining that the long holidays were necessary as several man-hours had to be put in to study the cases and prepare judgements.
