Important that citizens know their constitutional and statutory rights: Justice Gavai

Ekta Nagar: It is important for citizens to know their constitutional and statutory rights because unless they are made aware of their rights they will not come forward to enforce them, Justice BR Gavai of the Supreme Court said here on Saturday.

Justice Gavai said the constitutional promise made under Article 39 (A) that deals with equal justice and free legal aid will be fulfilled by the efforts that National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) is making to reach out to the "last mile citizens of the country".

Justice Gavai is the executive chairman of NALSA.

"It is not enough to have rights. It is also necessary that the citizens must know their constitutional, statutory rights. Unless they are made aware of their rights, they will not come forward to enforce them," Justice Gavai said at the commencement of the celebration of three decades of NALSA and the Western Regional Conference at Ekta Nagar in Gujarat's Narmada district.

He said since he took over as executive chairman of NALSA around five-and-half months back, his team has been successful in doing what NALSA is meant for --reaching out to the grassroots and the farthest corners of the country.

"Dr Ambedkar considered the Constitution to be a weapon for bloodless revolution. And, therefore, NALSA, in a way, is a revolution so as to keep the promise of justice to the needy in reality. NALSA's story is a story of quiet revolution of giving legal empowerment to the last mile citizens of the country," he asserted.

NALSA is also working to ease crowds in prisons by ensuring that the elderly and terminally ill prisoners are released on bail, the apex court judge informed.

"When we went to prisons immediately after I took over and went to Nagpur central prison, we identified the problems and immediately came out with the NALSA scheme for special provisions of easing out the crowd in the prisons. A special scheme for those who are aged and those facing terminal illness, we came up with a scheme for their release on bail," he said.

NALSA has also filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking the release of such undertrial prisoners on priority basis who are aged and terminally ill, he said.

Legal aid defence volunteers associated with NALSA have been very efficiently helping the prisoners who on account of their socio-economic handicap are not in a position to have access to justice, Justice Gavai said.

He said that law students are being involved in NALSA work through internship programmes so that the promise to give justice to citizens is imbibed in them right from their college training.

Justice Surya Kant, apex court judge and chairman, Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, said NALSA has removed the perception that justice was charity and has been successful in communicating to the people that it is their legal right.

He said the true measure of justice in a nation is not found in the grandeur of court buildings nor in the volumes of the statutory laws but in the sense of security and fairness felt by the poorest, the most marginalised, and the most voiceless.

"I do remember Mahatma Gandhi's words that 'the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members'. It is reflected in how many of our fellow citizens live without fear, neglect, exploitation and fear of being unheard. I would put it this way that the measure of a nation's justice is how many of its citizens never had to fear justice," he said.

Various initiatives of NALSA were launched on the occasion in the presence of the dignitaries, including Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Gujarat High Court Justice Boren Vaishnav, who is also chairman of Gujarat State Legal Services Authority.