Inaugural Address at the All India Seminar on 'Access to Justice'

Judiciary : The Guardian of Civilised Society

I am indeed delighted to inaugurate the All India Seminar on "Access to Justice" organized by Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association and the United Nations Development Program. When I am standing in front of you, such an important gathering of judges, advocates, judicial officials and other responsible citizens, a scene appears before me - a scene from our first independence movement, from 1857 to 1947, for 90 years we were fighting for our freedom. The leadership for the first vision of the nation, that is independence, was nurtured by the lawyer community. There were several leaders from law. They were all practicing lawyers when they were fighting for independence. Law and Independence movement made them great leaders of our nation. Today, it is known that our judiciary, apart from its regular judicial work, has led to action oriented decisions for protecting the green environment of our country and also a few long term programs for national development. I greet you all. Time has come to start the second movement. A movement against poverty, a movement against corruption to protect the rights of every citizen of our country and to ensure proper sharing of national resources. I am giving you a call for a mission to make the nation corruption free. Removal of corruption will be an important foundation for our nation. If we cannot eliminate corruption, and make transparent governance, the vision to become a developed India by 2020 will be a remote dream. In short, I am asking the judicial community to start a nationwide movement to form a corruption free India, just like your fore-fathers who started the movement for independence.

I would like to discuss my thoughts on the dynamics of Indian people, need for a cyber law for the ensuing digital era, law from universal outlook, transparency in governance and the majesty of law and judiciary. Hence, my topic for discussion is 'Judiciary: the guardian of civilized society.'

Law and dynamics of Indian People

Indian society has a mixed population, mainly of two categories - those who know their rights and duties and those who don't know their rights. Population in the second category is high in India. Court of Law and Judicial System have to work to protect the rights of the citizens. In such a situation, justice has to be oriented towards providing better access to all the people who are not aware of their own rights. Access to justice has to be sensitive to the unique dynamics of Indian people. We need to provide accessibility to justice for everyone in time, in a user friendly manner.

Indian ethos advocates a moral living without crime. They always emphasize that crime does not pay - justice always wins. While we have to provide easy access to justice for every citizen, we should also work for propagating our ethos particularly in our youth, that will minimize crime leading to protection of human rights.

I see that the theme of the seminar centers around Article 39-A of the Constitution of India. This article listed under the Directive Principles of State Policy provides that "The State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities." The first question, therefore, which we have to ask ourselves is the measure upto which we have been able to come up to the yardstick laid out in Article 39-A of the Constitution. Have we been able to provide justice on the basis of equal opportunity and more importantly, have we been able to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to the common citizen.

Cyber Law

India has the plan to become a developed nation by 2020. What does it mean? It means, the present 260 million people of a billion population have to be lifted above the poverty line and they have to be given social justice with economic prosperity. Economic prosperity by 2020 will also mean that many of the Indians will be doing business in the digital world on the web. In this new era, crime, law and justice will be completely different from the present.

In the present law, for example, the jurisdiction will correspond to the location where the crime is committed and where the damage occurs - very often both being the same location. Whereas in the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organizational wealth which will be in the digital form in multiple locations. In the 20th century a nation's business transactions and wealth creation were based on transfer of materials (atoms) from one place to the other. In the 21st century wealth is created whenever information in the form of electrons is transferred across the networks in a borderless world. Indian judicial system has to build its capacity to define jurisdictions in a way that any crime committed against India or her assets by anyone from anywhere shall be punishable by Indian law. Learned judicial authorities and the government must evolve progressive and innovative laws for the digital economy that will be one of the vital components of a developed nation.

Law, Is It Universal?

Law and judiciary have a very important role in development of a society. Law essentially plays the balancing role and enables justice and fair play when new opportunities and challenges are opening up in the developing society. In the earlier phase of Indian history before foreign invasions, the laws were basically catering to maintain the then prevailing social order, good morality and upliftment of all segments of the society. With time, the social system had gradually become more and more complex. In the present period such complexities have further grown rapidly with modern industrialisation, tremendous increase in population and resultant increase in scarcity of natural resources. As the Law has to address the imbalances in the society and protection of all the people, gradually, in all countries, laws have progressively become more and more national and specialised in character. Today we have well-conceived laws in various areas which were earlier unheard of, or some of them were unimaginable in the previous centuries. We already have Laws of the Sea, Laws of Air and Laws on Environment. The Intellectual Property Laws and also Cyber Laws will get a new shape. Our constitution demands defending air, land and water. We have laws on them. There is a need of law for protection of Indian space above 30 kms altitude as the International Law on space may not be sufficient. The geo-synchronous orbit has become a competitive business orbit (about 38,000 kms). As new Scientific and Technological knowledge as in bio technology, brain research, sensors, nano-technology and high performance computing systems come into operation, new laws to balance the interest of the people of today and the future generations as well as present and future interests of the nation have to be brought about.

Transparency in Government administration and management

One of the difficult problems for anyone who deals with the Government agencies, as a citizen or as a businessman, is its sheer complexity. It is essential for the Central and State Governments to meet the requirements of the citizens to bring in functional agencies that could lead to a one-stop shop to all the needs of the citizen. Persons in this one-stop shop themselves may have to do several coordination within the complex systems. Modern IT tools help to speed up such coordination. Eventually it can reach real-time capability as is done for railway and air reservations and ATMs etc. Actions by some of the State/Central Govt departments have resulted in the launch of Internet portals of Central and State governments. In many of our States, electronic network systems are being used to provide market related information, land records and food stocks. But these actions are at an initial introductory phases only. In one State, a florist even participates in the flower auction in Europe, using real time communication.

I would like to share with you a point that has direct relevance to common man's access to justice. Equality before Law and equality of access to courts is only a theory. Even for literates it is not easy to file a case which is the first basic step to access to law. The process is so complex. What will be the fate of others? Can they be freed from the web of complexities? The channel of communication between the courts of law and the common man is now complicatedly phrased in un-understandable legalese whether it is summons or any other formats. This forces the common man to rush to practitioners of law which of course, as you all know entails expenditure and makes access to justice that much more difficult. Therefore, there is a need to make all these formats and procedures user friendly so that access to justice is easy, meaningful, cost-effective and productive. And let me say, that would be justice.

Importance of self regulatory mechanisms

I would like to touch upon the important issue of probity in public life. As we are all aware, no democratic institution can survive unless there is equality amongst equals and unless there is transparency in its actions. With the rising all-round awareness and a demand for a clean and corruption-free public life, the burning issue of probity in public life is increasingly coming into focus. Conduct and behaviour in public life are, like never before, under very close scrutiny. The Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive are the three pillars on which the edifice of our democracy firmly rests. It is essential that all these three pillars are equally strong in structure, pure in form and uncorrupted and unblemished in conduct. I would call upon all of you to set high norms and standards of working and stick to them with a passion and zeal so that our democratic structure moves from strength to strength with its credibility never held in question. We can allow erosion of people's credibility in our system only at our own peril. I am sure you will all agree that, that is something we can ill afford to leave it to chance. As you are aware, various recommendations have been made by Commissions or other bodies for setting up institutional arrangements and self-regulatory mechanisms that would avoid subjective bias and set up objective systems thus leaving little scope for corruption to creep in. It is high time we acted upon these recommendations in the interest of our nation's future. I shall look forward to positive recommendations from this Seminar on this particular aspect.

Information based legal advisory

We have to start use of Information and communication Technology (ICT) in legal dispute resolution at the grass root level. I understand that there are a very large number of civil and criminal cases under the consideration of the Supreme Court, High Courts and in district Courts. Pending cases in various courts leads to enormous mental stress, agony, hatred and huge loss of earning & wastage of manpower. ICT tools can be used to create an electronic advisory system to assist the public / local agencies as reportedly made available in healthcare through Internet. Legal Mentoring and revitalizing village panchayat system through electronic connectivity to the Courts by using ICT will create Human Rights Awareness among the common public.

Majesty of law and justice

Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. Availability of a large number of opportunities to resort to just and fair means in order to attain that dignity and distinction, is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy. At this point, I would like to remind all of us that at social levels it is necessary to work for Unity of Minds. The increasing intolerance for views of others and increasing contempt about ways of lives of others or their religions or the expressions of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context. All of us have to work hard and do everything to make our behaviours civilised to protect the rights of every individual. That is the very foundation of the democratic values, which I believe is our civilisational heritage and is the very soul of our nation. Judiciary is the guardian of civilised life. Hence, nobility is the foundation of judiciary.

Concluding Remarks

Judiciary is the Angel and the Marshal that ensures that such a democracy survives. Judiciary is not simply making judicial pronouncements or enforcing law in a case. Judiciary is the whole process of interpreting the social, political, economical and human environment to ensure that that wholesome life with dignity and distinction is sustained. The edifice of justice thus stands exalted, high on a pedestal that the whole nation looks up to. The fundamental and over-riding importance of the system cannot be overstated and the need for constantly maintaining its purity not forgotten. The majesty of law and justice has to be maintained with magnanimity and magnificence. The members of judiciary therefore become inviolable role models, the perfect incorruptible ideals of a civilized society. It is this that we have to strive for, attain and sustain.

Best wishes to you.