The Hindu : Educate rural populace on legal rights: Chief Justice

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Educate rural populace on legal rights: Chief Justice

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, FEB. 14. The Madras High Court Chief Justice, Justice B. Subhashan Reddy, today called upon judicial officers to be considerate to the downtrodden, illiterate and those who fought the mighty. "Otherwise the judicial system will have no relevance at all," he said, inaugurating the maiden State-level conference of the State and District Legal Services Authorities here.

Cautioning that "chicken-hearted" persons would never make good judicial officers, he said responsible officials should not bother about incurring the wrath of the rich and the influential. Villages accounted for about 70 per cent of the total population in the State and half of them were illiterate. He exhorted subordinate judiciary officials not to rest until they educated the rural populace about the legal rights available to them.

The conference would discuss propagation of legal awareness and legal aid/literacy campaigns more efficiently, organising lok adalats and addressing problems brought before the fora.

Justice V.S. Sirpurkar, Executive Chairman, Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority, expressed concern over the declining quality of legal aid and lok adalat proceedings, and wanted officials organising the events to be more diligent. He advocated stringent action against advocates engaged by the Legal Services Authority if they failed to perform up to expectations. They should be summarily removed from the panel of the authority, he said.

Mr. Justice Sirpurkar urged the district organisers not to compromise on the quality of panellists. The Member-Secretary of the Authority, Akbar Ali, thanked the Chief Justice for having ensured that the forum owned buildings worth Rs. 7 crores in the State so far.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu