J&K: CJI compliments NALSA for organising Legal Services Authority meet in Srinagar

Srinagar, Jun 30 (PTI) Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Friday said the choice of Srinagar as the venue for the 19th Legal Services Authority meet reflects the mainstreaming of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in the discourse on the country’s development.

He also said that the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) is an exemplar of the nation’s commitment to serve others.

“I must compliment NALSA for putting up this event in Srinagar. The importance of Srinagar goes beyond the pure symbolism as the choice of the venue. To my mind, the choice of the venue for this significant meeting of the Indian judiciary, reflects the mainstreaming of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in the discourse on development in India,” CJI Chandrachud said.

“Our minds and hearts are together when we exist to serve each other,” Chandrachud said in his opening remarks at the meet at Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) here.

This event has brought together a wealth of learning and experience of the Indian judiciary, he added.

The CJI said in many ways the life of a judge is a life of isolation.

“Part of the reason for that isolation is our own desire to preserve our own independence. I am myself sometimes being accused of being a recluse but I do believe from my own experience that travel is an essential ingredient of opening up of minds. As judges, we all know that we are lauded and honoured. Mercifully, we are not worshipped,” he said.

“It is when you face the majesty of nature as I have faced during my travels in Ladakh and as I have faced in the last two or three days I have been in Jammu and Kashmir that you realise that human existence is but a speck before the enormity of the nature but yet it is the existence with a purpose,” the CJI said and added that the “more you dwell on the smallness of our existence, the more you are led to believe the purpose behind that existence”.

Minutes after the CJI finished his speech, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti tweeted that she welcomes the CJI to Kashmir.

“Article 370 – a constitutional commitment of this nation to the people of J&K was illegally revoked. This despite earlier SC rulings against its abrogation. Its been four years yet the matter is still pending before the honorable court,” she said.

“Thousands of our youngsters are languishing behind bars without recourse to a trial. The process itself has become the punishment,” the PDP chief tweeted. Mehbooba said Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India out of choice and not compulsion.

“Then why is it being deprived of basic fundamental rights and guarantees given by the Constitution itself? I earnestly hope your presence throws light upon these pressing issues,” she added.