On my appointment as Judge of the Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court, I was given a "Blessed Candle" by my cousin, a nun, and was told to light the candle and say a prayer every time before passing judgment. Had I taken her advice literally, I would have exhausted hundreds of such candles. But I took her exhortation seriously and prayed every time I took my seat in the court. I prayed for guidance and the Right Judgment. I continued this practice even at the Bombay High Court, whether sitting singly or in division benches.

On being anointed king, all that Solomon prayed for was Wisdom in performing his kingly duties. Could King Solomon's seemingly cruel yet extraordinary judgment deciding the claim of the rightful mother be attributed to "Divine Inspiration?" It is otherwise difficult to comprehend how he could have had the sagacity, the courage and the heart to direct cutting the baby into two.

Justice is often said to be "Truth in action." It was King Solomon's instinctive sense of justice that made him pass the order, revealing the truth and restoring the child to the rightful mother. Today, of course, the judge deciding such a case would have the benefit of Science. He would have ordered a DNA test.

Our justice delivery system is governed by the law. Judges are mandated to deliver justice in accordance with the law. However, law and justice are not always on the same page. A young lawyer arguing the case of his client, an elderly widow, before US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes complained that justice was not being given to his client. Pat came the reprimand from the judge, "Young man, this is a Court of Law, not a Court of Justice."

Again, after having delivered judgment convicting the accused, one eminent judge is reported to have said that he could have delivered just the opposite judgment on similar facts and law, giving equally cogent and valid reasons for acquitting the accused.

At the recent Farewell function hosted by the Supreme Court Bar Association for the outgoing Chief Justice of India, Justice Shri DY Chandrachud, Senior Advocate and President of SCBA Kapil Sibal, eulogised the Chief Justice on his performance as the Chief Justice and said he, in fact, outshone his illustrious father, also a one-time Chief Justice of India. Mr Sibal prefaced his praise of the outgoing Chief Justice by saying, "there is nothing like Perfection in life. Perfection is relative," implying that the CJI's performance, both on the judicial as well as administrative side, may not always have been right.

Clearly, in crafting his speech, Mr Sibal has done some tightrope walking, considering that the farewell was being held against the backdrop of the controversy generated by two preceding events. One was the aarti performed by the CJI before Ganesh at the CJI's residence alongside the Prime Minister of India, which was publicised widely. It is not known whether the CJI invited the Prime Minister.

Second was the statement made by the CJI at an event, sometime before ceding office, to the effect that the judgment on the Ayodhya land dispute, which he authored, was the result of his fervent prayer to Ganesh, giving rise to speculation that the judgment handing over the land on which once stood the centuries-old mosque, now demolished by the Hindutva forces, to the Hindus was based not on law and legal principles, but on the personal religious predilection of Justice DY Chandrachud who happened to be on the bench of five judges trying the matter, all of whom were not Hindus.

Mr Sibal is right. There is no such thing as perfect justice, and justice, as delivered by the courts of law, is relative. A successful litigant will say justice has been done. The unsuccessful litigant will definitely say justice has failed him, and the law is an ass. This is because the law is imperfect. The people who make the law are not perfect. The persons who administer the law are not perfect, and those who man the justice delivery system are not perfect.

Among his many innovations in the Supreme Court, Chandrachud has replaced the statue of the traditional Lady Justice with an Indian version showing the lady wearing a saree, a golden crown, holding the scales of justice high with her right hand and holding the Constitution in her left. The sword has been junked. But more importantly, the blindfold has been removed.

I suppose the CJI has been inspired by Lord Denning, the former master of the rolls who, in one of his judgments, famously said: "Justice is better off without a bandage around her eyes. She should be blind to favour or prejudice, but clear to see which way lies the truth". Only if the judge is without prejudice or bias will they be able to see which way lies the truth. The Statue of Justice on the dome of the Central Criminal Court in London is without the blindfold.

From ancient times, Lady Justice has been depicted with the Scales uplifted by one hand, brandishing the sword with the other and a blindfold, epitomising the concepts of Truth, Justice and Order. The Egyptian goddess Maat, the Greek Themis and the Roman Justitia all had these emblems which set the bar for judges.

Replacing the sword with the Constitution was apparently meant to reaffirm the basic principle of our justice delivery system: that justice has to be done in accordance with the law and not the predilections, whims, and fancies of the judge.

At the farewell, Mr Sibal also said that truth is also relative if I heard him right. This is shocking. It is always a pleasure to hear Mr Sibal speak, whether in or out of court. I had the pleasure of Mr Sibal arguing the bail application of a diamond merchant before me at the Bombay High Court. It is another matter that the bail application was rejected. In stating, "truth is relative", Mr Sibal has proved his previous statement that there is nothing like perfection. We all make mistakes.

Justice is divine, and judges, in delivering judgments, are performing a divine function - the prerogative of kings of old. But judges are only human and can make mistakes. It is, therefore, only natural for judges to pray for divine guidance before passing judgment, especially when deciding public importance and emotions. But choosing to supplicate a particular god from a pantheon of gods and goddesses and to publicly proclaim that his judgment was inspired by that particular god, especially by a judge who is part of a bench whose members may not all acknowledge a God or worship a different God, is problematic.

Justice according to law may be relative, and justice based on untruths and half-truths is not justice. But justice based on truth is divine. Truth is eternal and never changing. Truth can never be relative. The God of Truth is the God of Justice.