The people of India, who elect the government, are supreme, and the country is governed according to the Constitution, law minister Kiren Rijiju said on Saturday, reiterating that there was no conflict between the judiciary and the government.
“There is nothing like judiciary versus government in the country. It is the people, who elect the government… are supreme and the country runs as per the Constitution of India.” Rijiju said as chief guest at the valedictory programme of the 150th foundation day of the Allahabad High Court Bar Association in Prayagraj.
The law minister was referring to reports that the central government was at loggerheads with the judiciary over selecting judges for the higher judiciary through an apex court collegium.
Also Read: Supreme Court can’t warn, nobody can; public our ‘maalik’: Kiren Rijiju
Mentioning crores of cases pending in the country, the maximum of which are at the Allahabad High Court, Rijiju said that by adopting technology, “we can reduce the pendency rate”.
Commending the excellent work done by the judiciary during the pandemic, Rijiju said, “It was due to technology like videoconferencing initiated a few years ago under the e-court programme.”
He praised the Narendra Modi government for allocating ₹7,000 crore in the recent budget for phase three of the e-court programme.
Lauding the glorious history of Allahabad high court, he urged all those associated with the bar to maintain its glory as they were celebrating 150 years of its foundation.
Regarding other ways to reduce pendency, he said the federal government was making all possible efforts to strengthen the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) method. In this backdrop, the Mediation Bill is going to be passed soon. “Though arbitration is a quasi-judicial process, mediation will be a judicial process,” he added.
He also urged organising legal services camp in Uttar Pradesh, as has been done elsewhere, to provide justice at a reasonable cost to the people. “In order to make the judicial system easier, as many as 1,426 old and redundant laws have been removed,” the minister said. “Besides, the old laws prepared during the British period with a colonial mindset would also be given up.”
He said maximum use of the mother tongue during arguments should be encouraged in the interest of litigants, adding that his department has prepared a legal glossary and a book on legal terminology to make this task easier.
Supreme Court justice Krishna Murari, the guest of honour, said he was proud that he was a member of this bar association. Another guest of honour, justice Vikram Nath of the Supreme Court, fondly recalled the days spent in this bar association.
Also Read: Govt notifies appointment of five judges to apex court
Chief justice Rajesh Bindal said completion of 150 years of the bar association is time for retrospection and be motivation from its past activities.
Earlier, in his welcome address, bar association president Radha Kant Ojha said that certain defects in the collegium system had crept in the recent past. He lauded the law minister for highlighting this issue at the national level. He also pointed out the huge number of vacant posts of judges in the Allahabad high court, which is placing a huge burden on the judges.
Apart from several high court judges and many lawyers, others who shared the dais with the law minister included justice Ramesh Sinha, senior judge of the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court, Uttar Pradesh advocate general Ajay Kumar Misra and bar association senior vice-president Manoj Kumar Mishra.
