Rethink full-day cease-work, times have changed, says Calcutta HC to lawyers
Times of India | 9 September 2025
KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court Bar should rethink the practice of adopting resolutions to abstain from court hearings for an entire day as this led to cases piling up and put "pressure on the court", Justice Tirthankar Ghosh told sen-ior advocates on Monday.
"Times have changed," Justice Ghosh said, suggesting that closures could happen after 3.30pm, prompting the HC Bar Association members to indicate that they would consider the advice.
Former Calcutta HC Bar Association president Jayanta Banerjee passed away on Sunday night. The association adopted a resolution at 10.10am on Monday, urging members to take "a call of conscience to restrain from participating in court proceedings as a mark of respect to the departed soul".
It also requested the bench "to not pass any order in absence of any of the parties for the entire day from 10.30am", Calcutta HC Bar Association secretary Sankar Prasad Dalapati said.
Justice Ghosh on Monday said times had changed. "Only 14 working days are left (for the Durga Puja vacation), one day (today) is gone. You do it (abstain from work) at 3.30pm and allow us (judges to hear cases) till then so that we can increase the speed (of clearing cases) and do something.
Then we have to choose matters, (this) ma-tter is urgent, (this) is not urge-nt. Last week, out of four working days, we could not function for one-and-a-half days.
You have to decide," he added.
Senior advocate Bilwadal Bhattacharyya, who was in Justice Ghosh's court, agreed. "We are professionals and we are supposed to act professionally. Closing down of courts for an entire day creates a domino effect," he said.
This is not the first time that the bench has made such a suggestion. Former CJI DY Chandrachud, who attended the bicentennial celebrations of the Calcutta HC Bar Library last year, urged the bar to stop the practice of ceasing judicial work for an entire day. "I would request a rethink. Should we be ceasing work because a member of the bar has passed away? Of course, we respect our friends, our colleagues, our seniors. Sometimes, unfortunately, they are our peers who have passed away untimely.
Do we need to affect society at large?" he had asked at the gathering of the bar and the bench.
Bar association secretary Dalpati agreed there was a need for "some rethinking". Full-day cease-work resolutions were taken when the association had 2,000 members. Now there are 14,500. "A resolution like this does affect court functioning," he said.
The Calcutta HC "Justice Clock", tracking case pendency, showed that the appellate side could clear only 58 cases and the original side could clear only two cases on Monday.