Delhi High Court website to have dedicated section for courtroom humour

The Delhi High Court has started a new section on its website for publishing stories of humour in courtrooms..The initiative, dubbed Humour in Court, was launched on Wednesday at the High Court alongside two other IT initiatives - Delhi High Court WhatsApp Services and the Delhi High Court e-Museum..Chairman of the IT, AI and Accessibility Committee at the High Court, Justice Rajiv Shakdher today said that the Humour in Court initiative was close to his heart."Often, history of times is revealed and recorded through these anecdotes. Now we have a place where the anecdotes that we hear and exchange can be recorded ... Lawyers and judges need to lighten up. Sometimes, to lower the temper, judges can make a funny remark. We need not be very sensitive and need to learn to laugh at ourselves," he added..The Court has invited contributions from the lawyers and litigants who may have witnessed rib-tickling moments in courtrooms for the new initiative. The same can be mailed to delhihighcourt@nic.in. Justice Shakdher further informed that certain guidelines would be put in place so that the privacy of lawyers, litigants and judges is not violated while submitting such anecdotes."You will have to adhere to certain SOPs. First you can't name people. It also shouldn't be offending. We don't want to edit anything but we would have a committee headed by J Rekha Palli and will have Justice Prateek Jalan as well as Justice Amit Bansal as members. I am thinking the committee should be named The Funny Bone Committee," he said..One of the first contributions to the section is of Justice Shakdher. .Speaking at the launch event, Justice Rekha Palli complimented Justice Shakdher for introducing this initiative and added,"It is a message to all my colleagues (judges) that if you want to have your name in history, you must lighten the mood in your courts."Acting Chief Justice Manmohan lauded all three initiatives launched today."I think these initiatives will be a great boon to the lawyers. The most important thing is the introduction of humour," he said. .Speaking on the other two initiatives launched today, Justice Shakdher said,"The new e-Museum portal will have important matters on it like the FIR for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the case and the trial. We want to make these things accessible to people ... On WhatsApp, you can generate your own cause list, track the progress of the case and keep getting updates. It is a service available on your fingertips. I have personally experienced that we no longer look at SMS.".Interestingly, this may not be the first time that a High Court or a judicial institution has sought to keep a record of the court humour.The Allahabad High Court also has a document on Law and Laughter by Justice Gyanendra Kumar..[Read Live Coverage]