‘Will miss my Hindustan’: Justice Dhulia bids adieu to SC

“I am going to miss my Hindustan,” said an emotional Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia as he bid farewell to the Supreme Court on his last working day on Friday.

Sharing a personal moment, Justice Dhulia recalled a conversation with his wife. “We were having breakfast; my wife asked me, ‘What is it that you are going to miss the most now that you’re demitting office?’ I told her immediately, ‘What I’m going to miss the most is my Hindustan.’”

Seated on the Ceremonial Bench alongside Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice NV Anjaria, Justice Dhulia clarified that for him, “Hindustan” meant lawyers.

“I mean, Hindustan is you (lawyers)... It’s perhaps the only court where cases come from all over the country… Lawyers come here from every part of India. And this is what I am going to miss the most… I will not have this Hindustan before me every morning,” he said, responding to the praise heaped on him by lawyers and judges, including the CJI.

The CJI praised Justice Dhulia’s judicial approach, saying, “Justice Dhulia served in some of the remotest and most beautiful parts of the country. He brought with him a legacy of freedom fighters and jurists. His judgments reflect quiet conviction, not superficial reasoning. He has always been a source of wisdom for his colleagues.”

Attorney General R Venkataramani said, “Justice Dhulia always gave us our day in court. He saw the human element in every case, and that is something we will always remember.”

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta added, “He never had pre-decided notions. He had a deep interest in literature and Urdu ghazals, yet he never let personal preferences interfere with his judicial function.”

Justice Dhulia reflected on his time in court, saying listening to arguments was one of the most rewarding experiences of his judicial life.

He cited a passage from Somerset Maugham’s ‘Of Human Bondage’ to describe how his courtroom experience had shaped his perspective: “In the book, the protagonist Philip is sent to Paris to study painting. When he returns, his uncle asks him, ‘What have you learnt in these five years?’ Philip says, ‘I learnt to look at a tree.’ His uncle replies, ‘Even I can look at a tree,’ to which Philip says, ‘But I can look at a tree against the background of the sky.’ This is what I saw here — with your arguments, you revealed something inside which I had not visualised before.”

Born on August 10, 1960, Justice Dhulia completed his schooling in Dehradun, Allahabad and Lucknow. He graduated in 1981 and went on to earn a Master’s degree in Modern History before completing his LLB in 1986.

He began his legal career at the Allahabad High Court and later moved to the newly formed Uttarakhand High Court in 2000, where he became a senior advocate and was elevated to the bench in 2008.

Justice Dhulia comes from a distinguished family: his father served as a judge of the Allahabad High Court, his mother was an academic and his grandfather was a noted freedom fighter.