President address Constitution Day function at Supreme Court

President Ram Nath Kovind yesterday said that co-existence of the fully independent judiciary with a vibrant parliamentary democracy is a testimony to the sagacity and foresight of our founding fathers.

Addressing the Constitution Day function at the Supreme Court this evening, Mr Kovind said the founding fathers created institutions and designed the right balance among them to ensure that their core objectives are not compromised.

He said the nation will always remain grateful to all the members and office-bearers of the Constituent Assembly, particularly its President, Dr Rajendra Prasad, and Chairman of the Drafting Committee Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar who is rightly known as the architect of the Constitution.

The President paid homage to the 15 women members of the Constituent Assembly, saying they spoke of equal rights for one and all when women in many parts of the world were denied basic rights.

Mr Kovind said the task of making justice more accessible to all has to be a collective effort of all the stakeholders in the bench and the bar.

He said a hurdle in the way of



justice is the delay and the resulting backlog, and clearing this bottleneck requires detailed deliberations and systemic efforts.

The President said Information and Communication Technology can bring about amazing results in this domain. He expressed happiness that the Supreme Court has followed up his suggestion and started making its judgments available in nine regional languages.

He said in the days to come, the list can include more languages, so that common people can read the verdicts of the highest court.

In his address, Chief Justice of India, Sharad Arvind Bobde said the Constitution is a framework of life, and over the years, it has facilitated a social revolution. He said the Constitution belongs to each citizen of this country.

He said the Supreme Court proposes to introduce a system of artificial intelligence translation tools to make judgments of the Apex Court available in multiple languages.

On the occasion, Justice Bobde released the Annual Judiciary Report 2019 and presented the first copy to President Ram Nath Kovind.