Mr. SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, CJ.

ORDER

1. Mr. M. Baskar, learned counsel, accepts notice for the respondent.

2. The petitioner claiming to be a social worker and a press reporter and also claiming to be working as Chief Editor of ‘Dhinamathi’, a Tamil Daily, since 2005, has filed the present Public Interest Litigation, aggrieved by the Calendar arranged by this High Court.

3. It is his say that for the past two decades only the festival of Deepavali is celebrated in the State of Tamil Nadu and two days holidays used to be given, as it is not a major festival in the southern part of India. It is stated to have been made famous by the north Indian people, who have settled in the State of Tamil Nadu. It is pleaded that the Tamil festival of Pongal is celebrated nowhere except the State of Tamil Nadu. The allegation is that because the last and current Chief Justice happened to be from north India, it is an endeavour to thrust the northern culture on the people of Tamil Nadu.

4. The petitioner, thereafter, proceeds to go into the aspect as to why Deepavali is celebrated. He questions why Ravanaa’s effigies should be burnt on that date, as he claims, this amounts to a vendatta against a section of the Dravidian people.

5. Surprisingly, simaltaneously he claims that India is a multi- cultural and heterogeneous nation, which should protect everybody the right to worship birth, but not death. The grant of holiday of four days on 9th and 11th to 13th of November, 2015 is, thus, pleaded to be unnecessary, apart from the fact that it makes advocates jobless and affecting the functioning of the Courts. It is also alleged that only the senior most judges of the Court are from northern part of India.

6. Thereafter, a political discourse starts in the petition of the statement made by the External Affairs Minister qua Bhagavad Gita and it further states that the holiday for Deepavali amounts to patronising Hindu religion and discrimination against other religions. The petitioner prays that not more than one day for Deepavali festival, i.e. on 10.11.2015, should be declared holiday. The petitioner also pleads that the respondent has no authority to declare public holiday under Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

7. We heard the learned counsel for the petitioner at length.

8. India is a vast country with various cultures, languages with dialects, food habits – something the Nation is proud of. All these persons of various cultures have combined together to form the Nation of India. It is something to be celebrated rather than to segregate the country into two parts by raising the divisive issues, as the present petition seeks to do. There is no North-South divide but for the endeavours of persons like the petitioner, who seek to raise these divisive issues only to gain publicity and create unrest among people. It is necessary for the Court to come down with heavy hand on such endeavours. Persons from one part of the country have settled in other parts of the country and they have a constitutional protection to do so.

9. The process of settling of calendar of a High Court requires the Registry to prepare a draft calendar, which, then, in turn, is discussed with all the representatives of the Advocates Associations and the Moffussil Bar. In fact, towards the endeavour for increasing the working days in Court, a discussion was held with the Advocates associations and the Moffussil Bar, but they were unanimously of the view that the total number of working days should not be increased. It was stated that the High Court is required to work for 210 days, but in order to increase the working days, the Madras High Court works for half-an-hour each day extra and when calculated over the period of time, it amounts to working of 230 days. This was with the objective of increasing the working days of the Court to facilitate justice to the public at large. The advocates had emphasized that they also need time for preparation and other matters, which are done d

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