Everyone is bound to follow rule of law: Chief Justice of India

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra on Friday said everyone in the country is bound to follow the rule of law and there would be utter chaos without constitutional sovereignty.

The CJI said this addressing the 46th All-Odisha Lawyers’ Confer-ence here on Friday.

“Be it Judiciary, Executive or Legislative, we have to think that we are under constitutional sovereignty and we have to surrender to constitu-tional supremacy,” he said.

The CJI said that the role of lawyers was not confined to courts alone or advising clients in business deals. “It extends to being an integral part of our system of administration of justice, and justice not just in the legal sense but justice that is social, economic and political as set out in the preamble of our Constitution,” he observed.

The CJI informed that emphasis was being given on high courts to complete hearing on criminal cases pending for 10 years in different parts of the country.

Judges and lawyers have been asked to work on Saturdays and within the past three months; the high courts have disposed 1,410 cases by sitting on Saturdays.

The Madhya Pradesh HC was top in disposing of 321 cases followed by the Chhattisgarh HC with 186, the Patna HC with 177, the Punjab and Haryana HC with 152, the Gujarat HC with 125 and the Orissa HC with 71.

“The State government is doing all possible things for the people of Odisha to get justice at their doorstep. Already more than 170 courts have been established in last 4 years and for the coming financial year, there is a target to establish further 50 new courts in the State,” the CJI added.

He informed that Odisha government had agreed to install air conditioners in all court rooms in the State by April-May to speed up the process of disposal of pending cases.