Centre-judiciary differences can’t be construed as confrontation, says Kiren Rijiju

CHENNAI: Asserting that differences were inevitable in a democracy, Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju said differences between government and judiciary cannot be construed as confrontation. He denied any clash between the government and the judiciary.

The Union Law Minister was speaking after inaugurating the chief judicial magistrate court at Myladuthurai. Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, and Acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Justice T Raja, were present on the occasion.

While pointing out some media reports on differences between the government and judiciary, Rijju said that in a democracy differences were bound to be there and added that these were due to differences in outlook but stated that conflicting positions should not be there.

He said, "This does not mean confrontation between the government and the Supreme Court or between the legislature and judiciary. This is not confrontation but only differences that are inevitable in the largest democracy in the world."

The Union Law Minister said that the Central Government would support the judiciary's independence and added that the bench and the bar are two sides of the same coin.

He said that one cannot work without the other and added that courts should have proper decorum and a conducive atmosphere. Rijjiju said that the country is not ruled by a dictatorial king and added that the differences of opinion cannot be construed as a crisis in Indian democracy.

The minister said that the two bodies can criticise each other, but in the national interest, they should all be one. The minister lauded the courts in Tamil Nadu for their excellent performance during the pandemic and for delivering judgements. He said that the judicial infrastructure in Tamil Nadu was much better than that in many other states.

The minister said that during the previous year, Rs 9000 crore was allocated for the district courts and other courts in the state of Tamil Nadu, and added that his department was pushing hard for the utilisation of the funds so that more funds could be sought.

He said that the government wanted the Indian judiciary to completely go paperless in the coming days. The minister said that in the coming days, due to technological advancement, everything could be synchronised and the judge need not postpone the cases for lack of evidence. He said that work is in progress and added that a major solution for the pendency of cases was in the near future.

The minister also said that the executive and judiciary should work together to clear the backlog of cases. Rijjiju said, "In India, each judge is hearing 50 to 60 cases a day, and if I had to deal with so many cases, the mental pressure would be tremendous."

He said that due to the heavy influx of cases, there were criticisms that judges were not able to deliver justice and added that this was not true.

The minister pointed out that even as cases were disposed of faster, the number of cases coming up for hearing was higher. He said that the only solution was to strengthen the Indian judiciary and to have better infrastructure and better mechanisms.

He called upon all the courts to use Tamil language in all court proceedings in the state and added that with the use of technological advancements, Tamil, which was a classical language, could one day be even used in the Supreme Court of India.

The minister also said that his ministry was developing a common core vocabulary where Indian languages will have certain common usages that are purely technical in nature. He said that this was to ensure that common people receive orders in their respective languages. (IANS)

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