The burden of delivery of Rule of Law falls on the judges: Vice President Hamid Ansari

Addresses the Sesquicentennial Celebrations of the High Court of Judicature of Allahabad in Lucknow. The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that the burden of delivery of Rule of Law falls on the judges. He was addressing the Sesquicentennial Celebrations of the High Court of Judicature of Allahabad, in Lucknow today. The Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Ram Naik, the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.The Vice President said that the traditional public esteem for the judiciary has been reinforced by its activism in contrast to the failure of the executive to apply correctives on matters of concern and this is particularly true of its good work in expanding the ambit of rights. The Vice President, however, also cautioned that lack of access to justice, the high cost of it, delays in the delivery of justice, lack of a mechanism for accountability and allegations of corruption have, together, given rise to doubts and added to the pervasive pessimism about the efficacy of institutions. He further added that another area of concern is the excessive zeal reflected at times in pronouncements of members of the judiciary.Referring to Kautilya’s Arthashastra, the Vice President said that judges shall discharge their duties objectively and impartially and added that rectitude is thus a prime requirement in judiciary as in all other walks of life and must be observed at all times and at all levels.The Vice President said that a changing world has made globalization an unavoidable necessity and this, in the ultimate analysis, cannot be restricted to economics and trade policy only and extends to global standards in all fields including in the area of dispensation of justice; by implication, the space for local peculiarities is shrinking. The sooner we adjust to it, the better for all – litigants, lawyers, judges and the eventual beneficiary would be public, he added.Following is the text of the Vice President’s address:“Men and women who wear judicial robes are not known to deviate into the unknown and yet they seem to have embarked on a risky venture in inviting someone unlettered in law to this landmark function today marking the sesquicentennial of the High Court of Allahabad.I thank Chief Justice Chandrachud and Mr. Justice Husnain for this and I fervently pray that I would justify their gamble.The Allahabad High Court of Judicature is one of the oldest high courts in the country. Today, it is the biggest in terms of work load, the number of judges and, regrettably, in terms of vacancies on the bench. The Lucknow Bench of High Court itself has had a long and distinguished history.On my part, I candidly admit that the infrequent opportunity of coming to one’s own state in the Union of India was temptation enough, more so because I have vague memories of a few years of childhood spent in this historic centre of culture and etiquette in the early 1940s. I therefore take solace in the couplet:Go wan nahin pa wan ke nikale huai to hainKaabe se in butoen ko bhai nisbat hai door ki I have a subjective reason too for succumbing to the temptation. A distant relation of mine on my mother’s side was the first Indian Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. I refer to Sir Shah Mohammad Sulaiman who presided over this Court from 1932 to 1937 before becoming a judge of the Federal Court of India established under the Government of India Act, 1935. The eloquent tribute paid to him in Justice R.S. Pathak’s essay in the centenary volume is testimony enough to his work.It has been said often enough that fundamentals of faith must be revisited in order to reinforce faith. One of our articles of faith as citizens of the Republic of India is the Rule of Law. The term is a part of our daily vocabulary. Its basic purpose is, as Montesquieu said a long time back, is avoidance of tyrannical laws or their execution in a tyrannical manner. Its classic enunciation is to be found in Albert Dicey, who needs no introduction to this audience. To him, the essential ingredients of rule of law were (a) the absolute supremacy of regular law (b) equality before the law (c) access to justice and development of law by the judges on a case by case basis. As the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Bingham put it, ‘it makes the difference between Good and Bad Government.’Over time and in different societies, these principles have been challenged, amplified and modified. Professor Upendra Baxi has sought to read the rule of law as going beyond a mere division of functions in modes of governance; to him, it is the rule of good law and is as such reflective of the struggle of a people ‘to make power accountable, governance just, and state ethical’. Professor Baxi opines that the Indian constitutional conception of the rule of law links its four core notions: rights, development, governance and justice.An interesting early example of this...

The burden of delivery of Rule of Law falls on the judges: Vice President Hamid Ansari

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