Justice L. Nageswara Rao of the Supreme Court on Saturday said that Indians gave themselves ‘liberty’ in the Constitution as they were coming out of ‘bondage’.
Justice Rao was addressing a gathering at the M. Nageswara Rao memorial lecture where he traced the history of the idea of liberty to the drafting of the Magna Carta 804 years ago, in the year 1215 CE.
“What is this liberty? And where do you find it in the Constitution? And how is it that it found a place in the Constitution? If you see liberty, it can be found in the Preamble itself. Because, we gave to ourselves a Constitution which protects liberty of thought, expression, belief and religion, including faith. These are what we gave to ourselves. And why did we give this to ourselves? Because we were coming out of bondage,” he said.
Justice Rao expressed happiness that several youngsters at the lecture spoke about the right to information and privacy, among other issues, even as he remarked that ‘with industry, any person can become a good lawyer’.
