New Delhi, Jan 19 (PTI) Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Monday said “true justice” resides in grassroots-level courts and urged the high courts as well as the Supreme Court to “incentivise”
young lawyers to practise in the district courts.
The CJI lamented the “misbranding” of district courts as “lower courts” in the country and asserted that being an “important organ of an independent judiciary”, these courts play a more important role than the appellate fora.
“Let us always remember that justice does not primarily reside in the appellate forums only. True justice resides only at the grassroots-level courts because the ordinary citizen will have the first encounter for the enforcement of his right only in the district courts,” he said.
“The district courts are the places where law becomes real, immediate, and it acquires the shape of a human approach. If a litigant, a consumer of justice is satisfactorily dealt with in this primary health centre, I am quite sure he will not be required to be shifted to bigger hospitals. Definitely, he will not be required to go to a trauma centre,” the CJI added.
Justice Kant was speaking at an event organised by the Bar Council of Delhi to felicitate him on taking oath as the 53rd CJI.
Held on the Delhi High Court premises, the event was attended by the judges of the Supreme Court, the high court, officials of the council as well as members of the Bar.
In his speech, CJI Kant shared his “concerns” and sought a “collaborative approach” from the Bar and the Bench to deal with those.
There is somehow a misconception among law graduates from national law universities or other “important” universities that leads them to consider either a high court or the Supreme Court for their legal practice, and not the district courts, he said.
Drawing from his own experience of having begun his legal career from a district court, the CJI said the district courts are the “centres of cultivating professional culture” and the initial training there builds the foundation for further practice in appellate courts.
“I will request even to the high court and to my own colleagues in the Supreme Court that let us try to incentivise the practices in the district courts and try to cultivate that culture which will strengthen our legal bar,” he said.
The CJI also asserted that technology is of “good help” in drafting but application of mind has to be learnt. PTI ADS RC
