Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, in Bhubaneswar, on March 4 said calibrated attempts were being made to tell the World that Indian judicial was under attack and Indian democracy was in distress.
“I find that there are calibrated attempts being made from inside and outside the country. I have never even a single person of India who says that he will not abide by Indian laws or I have never come across anybody in the country that he will say that he would not follow the court Order,” said Mr. Rijiju while addressing, ‘Nyaya-Yajna,’ the first conference of Central government counsel of Eastern States of India.
“Despite that attempts are being made to tell the story that Indian Judiciary is under attack. There are attempts being made to speak in forum inside India and outside India that Indian judiciary is in crisis. The message which is being sent is that Indian democracy is in crisis,” said Union Law Minister.
“No campaign whatsoever with ulterior motives can succeed in defaming India and its democratic set-ups. We Indian are inherently democratic. That’s why we proudly claim that we are mother of democracy in the world. United States can say that they are the oldest democracy, but India is truly the mother of democracy,” he pointed out.
Emphasising on need of stringent laws, Mr. Rijiju said, “Our prime interest is to secure the nation. We have to make our society full of provisions which make it fully secured. Security does not just come like that. One has to sacrifice many things for coming to a shape. Even for a sportsperson or bodybuilder, one has to really sweat out and sacrifice to get a shape. In a similar fashion, to guarantee individual freedom, rights and liberty, we have to sacrifice many things.”
“When we want to make India safe and secured place, we have to make stringent laws. Without that the freedom will not exist. As long as we have a secured boundary and as long as we have strong State, all the things guaranteed in Constitution will prevail. Otherwise, there will be complete lawlessness. In the name of freedom, if everybody runs freely where will be the law and order and discipline in the society? We need to strike a balance,” he pointed out.
Commenting on some recent development when government and judiciary were not on the same page, the Union Minister said, “there may be differences within judiciary. There could be difference in opinion in two judges in same Bench. This is part of democratic principles. In a similar fashion, the opinion of executive and opinion of judiciary differ at time. Differences may come when we say Judges’ appointment cannot be done by judicial order. This was stand taken by the government because the Constitution says so. But this does not mean that the government is disregarding judiciary. There are misinterpretations.”
Mischievous effort were being made to malign Indian judiciary and Indian State as a whole and it must be resisted, not just by legal fraternity, but by every citizen, Mr. Rijiju said, adding that Some people want Indian judiciary to play role of Opposition.
On issue of repealing obsolete laws, he said, “we are making efforts to repeal all obsolete and redundant laws. So far, 1486 of such laws have been repealed. Sixty five Acts including eight principle Acts, 16 amendment Acts and 41 appropriation Acts are proposed to be repealed in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament.”
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