Kerala - Kochi   

Law trailing behind technology: Kapil Sibal

Staff Reporter

Plan to link courts through optic fibre cable

Kochi: Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, on Wednesday, urged lawyers to think in terms of nation building and solve problems that afflicted the country.

At a seminar on the "Role of Indian lawyers in the nation building process," organised here as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Kerala High Court, he said laws in the country were far behind the changes taking place in the field of science and technology.

The laws remained in the realm of status quo. Those who believed in status quo would never triumph.

The Minister said unconventional methods should be utilised to bring about solutions to the problems faced by the country. His Ministry had plans to connect trial courts and the High Courts through optic fibre cable.

This would enable the judges to readily access the trial court documents when appeals against the lower court verdicts came up. This would also bring about accountability of the judicial system.

The Minister said the judicial system needed to be restructured. He pointed out that the ratio of judges for every one-million population was 10.5.

This was the lowest compared with those in other countries.

The salaries of subordinate judges were not commensurate with the work they were putting in.

He reminded the lawyers that their duty was to uphold rule of law and cause of justice.

Rat race

He lamented that the lawyers were now far removed from the concept of public service because of the rat race for getting briefs and earning money.

The Minister said liberty, justice and freedom lay in the minds. The lawyers would be failing the nation if they forgot these concepts. Unless there was honesty of purpose, the rule of law would never prevail, he added.

G. Sreekumar, President, Kerala High Court Advocates' Association, presided over the function. Suresh Kurup and Sebastian Paul, MPs; Thampan Thomas, trade union leader; and M.K. Damodaran, former Advocate-General, spoke.

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