CJI DY Chandrachud urged Senior lawyers to pay their juniors well.

“For too long we regard young members of our profession as slave workers. Why? Because that is how we grew up. We can’t now tell young lawyers that is how we grew up. This was the old ragging principle in Delhi university. Those who were ragged always ragged people who were below them because it was passing on the blessing of being ragged. Sometimes it got very bad. But the point is seniors today cannot say that is how I learnt law in the hard way and therefore I will not pay my juniors. Those times were very different, families were smaller, there were family resources. And so many young lawyers who could have made it to the top never made it for the simple reason that they had no resources,” he said.

He emphasised the importance of opening up the legal profession to all sections of society from its current patriarchal and caste-based structure.

“This structure of legal profession, which is patriarchal and sometimes so caste based, has to change so that we as lawyers discharge our duties to our society to make the legal profession open up to people from different communities and marginsalised groups in our society,” he underscored.