Scare over cracked ceiling halts Court No 3 proceedings

NEW DELHI: It’s not often that proceedings in the Supreme Court of India are disrupted over the scare of a crack in the false ceiling in a court room.

But on Wednesday, judicial proceedings were interrupted for over twenty minutes, in court room 3 of the Supreme Court, after an advocate pointed out to a bench of three judges that there was a crack in the plaster of Paris (POP) of the false ceiling over their heads. Alarmed at the discovery of the crack in one of the panels of the false ceiling —a bench of Justice S A Bobde, Justice SK Kaul and Justice Deepak Gupta — retired to their chambers. The three judge bench was hearing a case when advocate J K Sethi of the Supreme Court pointed out to the judges that “there seems to be a crack in the POP of one of the panels of the false ceilings” and could fall.

Advocate J K Sethi refused to comment on the issue, saying that the matter was between him and the judges and he did not want to speak about it.

The judges left the court room and the matter was reported to the civil construction department of the court. The department reported that portion of the false ceiling that looked like it may fall was stable and there was no need to worry. After over 20 minutes, the judges returned to the court room and resumed work. But all of this after they moved their chairs to a safe distance from the ‘loose’ panel over their heads.