THE Constitution is a powerful tool to curb disparities and it creates institutions and structures which are meant to guard against inequality, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud has said.
Speaking at the 13th Convocation ceremony of O.P. Jindal Global University, the CJI said: “The Constitution provides for checks and balances within these institutions and also stipulates institutional priorities and obligations towards citizens of the country. Constitutional longevity speaks of the wisdom of our framers who were prescient enough to incorporate grounding elements into the Constitution without turning it into a rigid normative, and thus a brittle document.”
CJI Chandrachud also implored the students to spend their days and lives not only as ambassadors of their alma mater, but also as the voices of reason in a clutter of noise. “The danger to our societies today is the clutter of noise and we need the voice of reason among the voices of unbridled passion,” he said.
“Take this opportunity of personal transition to envision your goals not only as individuals, but also as members of the society. We know better than to assume that justice is capable of a single definition or that it is the exclusive concern of courts and legislatures. Far from it being the exclusive domain of lawyers, one does not even need to know the law to spot vacuums in our decisions, policies and institutional choices.
“Economists among you would perhaps similarly spot the cost of low female workforce participation to the country’s fiscal progress or the cost of women’s unpaid labour as homemakers.