Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Wednesday said great institutions like the judiciary should be on their guard against the “wicked and the vile,” who work in their dark recesses to weaken them in a deceptive manner.
The Chief Justice was speaking at the inauguration of the state-of-the-art Additional Building Complex of the Supreme Court. On the occasion, the Court also launched the translation of 100 of its English judgments in seven other languages.
President Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the solar-powered building, which has a total built-up area of 1,80,700 square metres and is situated on 12.19 acres of land abutting Pragati Maidan. The foundation stone of the building was laid in 2012 and is meant to overcome the acute space crunch. Constructed by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the building will house administrative blocks and has two auditoriums with a seating capacity of about 620 and 250 persons and a conference room.
In his address, the CJI said it is time for stakeholders to introspect their respective roles in order to successfully engage in the process of nation-building.
“History has witnessed how great institutions have been brought to the knees by the wicked and the vile. History has also seen how even great nations have been brought down in an utterly deceptive manner,” the CJI said.
“The threat from such people has always been the greatest to institutions like the judiciary, which do not pander to any particular interest or bow to powerful coteries that breed in the nooks and dark corners,” the CJI said. The Chief Justice also said there is a dire need for introspection among the stakeholders as to where and how they would like to see this institution in the decades ahead.
“The winds of change, bringing in a new world of instant communication amongst human beings across continents, have thrown open possibilities of a changing global order and its expanding and infinite consequences, from changing the way we live to even redefining ‘life on the planet’ itself. These changes have also affected the way human beings perceive institutions, and the irrelevance to the existent social order,” Chief Justice Gogoi told the gathering.
In this context, the CJI said the court and all its constituents should revamp existing methodologies and revisit conventional wisdom and traditions.
