Vacation Pe Vacation

No major country has their top court going on long holidays. Neither should Supreme Court

- Bibek Debroy and Aditya Sinha

In an earlier piece (Status And Status Quo, August 26), we mentioned the 1958 statute, on salaries and service conditions of Supreme Court judges. This speaks of leave a judge is entitled to and also mentions how leave can be spliced with vacations.

What is a vacation? It reminds us of summer and winter vacations as students. Former CJI Ramana delivered the Justice SB Sinha Memorial Lecture on "Life of a Judge" in July 2022. His words struck a chord in all those who work hard. "Sometimes, we miss out on important family events. At times, I wonder if my grandchildren would recognise me at all after failing to see them for days together." Excessive work is not only bad for family relationships, but it also adversely affects productivity. Therefore, many organisations mandatorily require employees to take annual leave. But there is a difference between (1) individual leave; and (2) vacation, where everyone in the organisation goes on leave.

Vacation has same etymological root as "vacate". During that period, the organisation is vacated, so to speak. It shuts down. Rare is the organisation, outside of courts, collectively vacated in this way, though individuals take leave, rightly so. Even in educational institutions, students have vacations, but teachers no longer do, not in the vacating sense.