Progress is ensuring justice, dignity to all: Justice Surya Kant
Justice Surya Kant of the Supreme Court on Saturday emphasised that true progress cannot be measured by GDP or statistics, but by ensuring justice, dignity and equal opportunity for all across the country. He said the role of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) is important in this regard by acting as a bridge between ‘law and life’.
Speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day ‘East Zone Regional Conference’ of the NALSA, Justice Kant said the meet is of increased importance as it shows that this region is not merely the frontier of the country’s geographical boundaries, but is ‘frontiers of India’s justice’.
“This gathering on the eve of the East-Zone Regional Conference, is more than an inauguration — it being a reaffirmation that our commitment to justice must reach where it has so far been slow to travel: across the valleys, tea gardens and borderlands of India’s East,” the seniormost judge of the top court, who is also the Executive Chairman of NALSA, said.
Lauding the organisers, he maintained that it demonstrates “a deep moral vision: one that recognises the historical inequities and structural barriers faced by the Eastern States in India”.
The conference has been organised by the Assam State Legal Services Authority in collaboration with the Gauhati High Court.
Justice Kant maintained that while the eastern states, including the North East region, have a rich biodiversity, culture and tradition, it is also burdened with adversities that demand collective attention. “Assam’s tea fills cups across the world, Bengal’s intellectual traditions have shaped our nation’s modernity, Bihar’s agriculture sustains millions, Odisha’s coastline links us to global trade and Jharkhand’s minerals power our industries. The Northeast, with its music, its dances, its festivals, remains a cultural heartbeat of India,” he said. Alongside the abundance, stark vulnerabilities persist and development indicators reveal troubling disparities, Justice Kant added. “True progress is not measured merely by GDP or statistics, but by whether justice, dignity, and opportunity are equitably distributed across every community,” said Justice Kant.
He mentioned child marriage, abuse of narcotics and psychotropic substances, problems of tribal communities and tea garden workers and mental health issues are major concerns for the region. Speaking at the two day East-Zone Regional Conference of the seven North Eastern states along with Sikkim, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha here in Sonapur, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the conference that brings together collective experience and wisdom of judiciary and legal service institutions from the eastern and north-eastern states would strengthen institutional mechanism and ensure greater access to justice especially by poor and marginalised.
Union Minister of State for Law and and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, Chief Justice Gauhati High Court Justice Ashutosh Kumar, Judges of the High Courts of Gauhati, Sikkim, Patna, Calcutta, Jharkhand, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya and Odisha also spoke on the occasion.
