Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana, dedicated to the people ‘Aain Seva Bhavan’ of the Odisha State Legal Services Authority

Cuttack:25/9/21: Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana, dedicated to the people ‘Aain Seva Bhavan’ of the Odisha State Legal Services Authority, Cuttack (OSLSA) on Saturday.

CJI Ramana said that the legislature needs to revisit the laws and reform them to suit the needs of time and people.

Speaking at the inauguration of a new building of the Odisha State Legal Services Authority in Cuttack, Ramana said, “laws must match with our practical realities and the executive has to match these efforts by way of simplifying the corresponding rules.”

Emphasising that the executive and the legislature should function in unison, the CJI said, “It is only then, that the judiciary would not be compelled to step in as a law-maker and would only be left with the duty of applying and interpreting the same. At the end of the day, it is the harmonious functioning of the three organs of the state that can remove the procedural barriers to justice.”

He pointed out that even after 74 years of Independence, traditional and agrarian societies, which have been following customary ways of life, still feel hesitant to approach the courts.

Ramana said, “The practices, procedures, language and everything of our courts look like alien to them. Between the complex language of the acts and the process of justice delivery, the common man seems to lose control over the fate of his grievance. Often in this trajectory, the justice-seeker feels like an outsider to the system.”

Elaborating on the Indianisation of the justice delivery system as a primary challenge for the Indian judicial system, on which he had spoken earlier, Ramana said a harsh reality is that often our legal system fails to take into consideration the social realities and implications.

He said it is a general understanding of the people that it is the court’s responsibility to make laws.