When Every Citizen Is Aware Of His Duties & Respects Others’ Fundamental Rights, We Will Have A Working Constitution: Bombay HC CJ Manjula Chellur

A ceremony to celebrate the 68^th anniversary of the Constitution Day, which fell on November 26, was held in the Central Court of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday.

Chief Justice Manjula Chellur, former Chief Justice Sujata Manohar, Justice (Retd) PD Kode, other sitting judges, the Advocate General AA Kumbhakoni, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, president of the Bombay Bar Association Milind Sathe, president of Advocates’ Association of Western India Rajiv Chavan and president of the Bombay Incorporated Law Society Kaiwan Kalyaniwalla were present at the ceremony.

In her speech, Chief Justice Chellur spoke on the strength of the Indian Constitution. She said: “For any institution or establishment to be strong, the foundation has to be strong. And how does the foundation get strong? When proper quantity of material or substance is put in the foundation. Preamble to the constitution lays equal importance to faith, social norms, practices and culture adopted by the citizens of this country. But every year, we devotedly celebrate this day, we say wonderful things about our Constitution yet litigations keep on increasing. If we say that the constitution has answers to our problems, then why do litigations increase? It is because the human mind is mischievous. Shed your ego, your selfish motives, you are not one but there are millions and millions of people just like you and me. We should treat all these people like we would want ourselves to be treated.

We have to make it a working constitution which means that every citizen must be aware of the constitution and the preamble. We as citizens must discharge our duties and respect the rights of fellow citizens. Only then will we have a working Constitution.

We must look at our constitution with the same devotion as we look at the Gita, Mahabharata or Quran.”

Advocate-general AA Kumbhakoni spoke on how the Indian Constitution has held much significance in terms of jurisprudence internationally and cited the examples of the Supreme Court of Canada, courts in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Kenya and Pakistan referring to the Indian Constitution and DD Basu’s commentary on it.

“Our Constitution is respected around the world, especially in developing countries as an instrument of true value,” he said.