lawyers and judges spend their time and years unravelling the text of the constitution. But the storey of the Indian Constitution is not a storey only of legal Dexter and legal interpretation. It is a storey of human struggles and sacrifices. It is a storey of undoing injustice against the marginal ist sections of our society the women, the disabled, the Dalits and members belonging to tribes and segments situated in far flung areas of the country. It must be remembered that the marginalised communities were the first to plant the seeds of the constitutional ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity on Indian soil. The first wave of resistance against the colonial power came from the indigenous communities of India. Our constitution is a social contract entered into between those who are in power historically and those who are oppressed and sought to change the power hegemony and chose to govern themselves coincidently. This year marks 75 years since our nation attained independence. India's liberation from colonial rule and the drafting of the Constitution was simultaneous projects. The prolonged struggle for independence culminated with the demise of the colonial rain and the birth of an independent nation governed by self rule. However, the death of the colonial regime was not accompanied by a simultaneous birth of constitutional values that we hold on so dearly do. When India gained her independence, she was invested with social evils. As the first prime minister said on the eve of independence, The past clings onto us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. That has been the continuing constitutional project. As the Supreme Court said in its judgement in 2018 in Indian Young Lawyers Association, besides the struggle for independence from British rule, there was another struggle going on since centuries and which still continues. That struggle has been for social emancipation. The constitution of India is the end product of both these struggles. The constitution of India is, to a large extent aspirational, for it seeks to deliver political freedoms and civil rights. Attempting to shrug off the colonial baggage, it seeks to remedy the injustices that are suffered in a socially hierarchical society. When the constitution was adopted, the social, political and economic realities of our nation were in stark contrast to the aspirational ideals in the text of the Constitution, the Constitution interested the Legislature, the executive and the judiciary with the role of bridging this gap between constitutional ideals and social reality. I am conscious that colonial and pre colonial courts followed an approach of reluctance, disinclination and inaction in protecting the rights of citizens. For instance, scholars and historians have documented the refusal of colonial courts to interfere in cases involving socio religious custom. Even if the rights of the marginalised were violated with the birth of constitutional democracy, the culture of reluctance was replaced by call for a dedicated judiciary to protect the rights of citizens. All judges across the courts in India, ranging from the district wards to the Supreme Court, must reflect upon the constitutional vision of securing justice, equality and liberty. There is a need for us to introspective on our actions and decisions and to question our own prejudices and preconceptions for until be open our minds to multiple views of persons with very lived experiences, we would be lacking in our role as judges. An institution tries with time only when it functions democratically. I believe that as the chief justice of India, it is my responsibility to collaborate and consult my sister and brother, judges at the Supreme Court, the chief justice and the judges of the High Court's members of the district, judiciary and the stakeholders of the institution. It is crucial that we tap on the experience of the diverse section of people who are part of the judiciary. Their knowledge and understanding would undeniably strengthen the institution. That is why it is all the more important that the representation of marginalised communities and women in the legal profession and the judiciary is enhanced. The Indian courts have been at the forefront protecting the rights of the marginalised groups and upholding the rule of law. The jurisprudence that has emanated from our courts in India has influenced decisions in far flung nations. As diverse is Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Jamaica, Uganda, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia and Singapore, which share similar problems in a nation as large, diverse and graded as ours. The paramount challenged at the judiciary as an institution faces, is to ensure that the justice delivery system is accessible to everyone. Challenges required dedicated actions. The Indian judiciary has been adopting several measures of institutional reforms with a single objective and I borrow the celebrated phrase of American civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King Jr to describe it. To bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice, we have been adopting technology to improve the working of courts. It is a supreme importance and necessity that the courts are remodelled to reach out to the people instead of the people reaching out to the courts in their quest for justice to ensure that the courts reach out to the people. It is essential that the process of litigation has simplified and made citizen centric. Though the judiciary is engagement with technology gained prevalence during the cove it 19 Benjamin, we must not dismantle the infrastructure but build upon it. And they will earnestly request the chief justice of the High Court's to ensure that the technological infrastructure on which public funds have been spent is not dismantled but strengthened further. The Supreme Court now functions in a hybrid mode with both online and offline courts, which enable lawyers and parties in person to appear from different parts of the country. Though the Supreme Court is located on till Akman, the Supreme Court is a supreme fort for the entire nation. As the chief justice, I am attempting to adopt technology based services in the listing of cases and court hearings so that institutional floors such as delays in listing and hearing can be removed from our vocabularies. The e Committee of the Supreme Court of India uses technology to make the justice delivery system more accessible and citizen centric. The National Judicial Data agreed, is a repository of 77 lock judgments of the High Court's that are available to every citizen free of cost. Additionally, various citizen centric services are employed to reach out to the people at the grassroots level, while technology has ably aided us in ensuring functionality of the judiciary. During the bad nitpick, technology must be augmented with institutional reforms to resolve the chief issues of access to justice. The first interface of the people with the judicial system is the district judiciary. It is thus of paramount importance that the district judiciary is strengthened and supported. The district judiciary must be lifted from the mindset of being a subordinated judiciary. Today, the prime minister of India is present here to launch the E initiatives, namely the virtual justice clocks. The justice is mobile application, 2.0 digital courts and S Tree wass websites of dis Records The virtual district The Virtual Justice clock is a platform where information available through the national judicial data grade, he is made available to the public. Virtual justice Clocks for the district Judiciary of India are a real time informative public Nash board which provide information and three levels covering all the states districts and court establishments in India. The dashboard provides real time status which is refreshed and updated every 15 minutes. The justice mobile app 2.0 is developed for the judges of the district courts in the country. The APP is provided to judicial officers to monitor pendency and disposal of his or her court at the hands. 24. 7. Digital courts is a green initiative of the Indian judiciary in the form of a best of app that has been developed to make courts paperless or digital. It provides an easy to view case, files documents while sitting at home. Judges can do all the case related pleadings, charge sheets, court orders of both civil and criminal cases which aim at making the court paperless, and finally, the initiatives est Rivas website. The acronym ESRI wa stands for Secure, scalable and so gimme a website as a service through the digital court in S. Rivas initiatives, the websites of district courts are being upgraded from the existing system to a platform which is secure, scalable and accessible. Content published in the website is accessible so that even persons with disabilities, including visual disabilities, would be able to access the information using assistive technologies. These initiatives reflect upon the commitment of the Indian judiciary towards providing access to justice to our own citizens, our endeavours to enhance access to justice. This most. This must not be understood in narrow terms of enriching the experience of those who are already in position of access. But by reaching out to those groups and communities that are denied basic rights, access to justice must be defined in the expression of upholding the faith and perception that the general public holds in the legal system. I can assure everyone that the initiatives launched today are a part of a larger technological and institutional advancement of the Indian judiciary to ensure that even the most disadvantaged communities in the country do not stumble while reaching out justice. Before I conclude, I would like to emphasise on the relevance on constitutional values, not just to the judicial branch but to all institutions and sections of the society. The evolution of a society can only ensue on the foundations of liberty, equality and fraternity. The trinity of values highlighted by Dr Baba Sahib Ambedkar in his last address to the Constituent Assembly. Therefore, I appealed to the young minds to reflect on the social realities of India and work towards achieving fraternity by dedicating themselves to the cause of justice in whatever way possible. Sometimes change happens by small acts of time. Nous the heart and the soul of law as it is administered in our courts is our sense of compassion to our citizens That I thank you, Jane.
