Union Minister for Law and Justice and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said that the Centre is steadfast in its commitment to an independent judiciary.
Mr. Prasad was addressing a well attended event on the 48 Months of Transforming India and the Modi government.
“I don’t want to make a larger comment on the judiciary before I conclude, except to say one thing: our government’s commitment for a free judiciary is impeccable and complete,” he said.
He said that several leaders like him had ‘suffered for the cause of an independent judiciary’ as they had fought against the Emergency for individual freedoms, press freedom and the independence of judiciary. As many as 126 judges were appointed in 2016, 117 in 2017 and 40 in 2018.
Digital profile
Touching upon Aadhaar, Mr. Prasad said that it is meant to ‘clean the system’ and has enabled the saving of taxpayer’s money. Comparing the approach to Aadhaar of the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance, he said that former Prime Minister’s Aadhaar was niradhaar while that of the Modi government is backed by Parliament and regulations of privacy and secrecy.
Mr. Prasad said that the digital profile of the country has improved significantly and pointed out that mobile phone penetration is the equivalent of population of some European countries. He said that there are as many as 121 crore mobile phones in the country out of which 45 crore are smartphones.
People’s movement
Describing Swachh Bharat as a people’s movement, he said that while 6.25 crore toilets were constructed from 1947 to 2014, in the last four years alone 7.25 crore toilets were constructed.
Touching upon foreign policy initiatives, Mr. Prasad said that India is being recognised as an emerging global power and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being acknowledged as a global leader.
