The judges of the Supreme Court—the final court of appeal in India—usually adjudicate serious crimes at a distance from the place of occurrence. Busy with their heavy dockets and mostly confined in the sanitised environment that comes with the office, the seniormost judges rarely ever witness a crime themselves. On March 28, 2015, cable operator Jaswinder Singh ‘Jassi’ interrupted this routine—fatally—during a Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) conference at a posh hotel in Amritsar.