Honble the Chairman, dignitaries on the dais, my esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I am overwhelmed for this opportunity to address this august gathering at Jaipur today. I take this opportunity to congratulate Indian Institute of Comparative Law, University of Rajasthan and Rajasthan Tax Consultants Association for holding this national conference on a topic which has more relevance and significance today, than it ever had. I say today, because we are in the process of yet another paradigm shift and the role of lawmen is once again most important at this juncture. We have a choice to make, and we will have to make it today, either to leave the world to thrive on chaos or network together to bring about sustained development leading to social order and peace.  

More than 75 years ago, on January 7, 1929 my grandfather joined judicial services in the erstwhile State of Jaipur and retired as the first Registrar of Rajasthan High Court. Subsequently my father served judiciary and retired as the Chief Justice of High Court of Rajasthan in 1986. I feel privileged to carry forward the legacy of my family tradition.

Every single day of my life as an advocate for last over 27 years in the Supreme Court of India, I have felt the impact of decision making process on issues of varied nature, touching almost every aspect of human existence, social behaviour and States governance. From basic structure and fundamental rights to compassionate appointments, from inter state water disputes and mineral rights to international maritime zones, from disinvestment and taxation to interest on pensions, from CBI inquiries and investigations by investigating officers to anticipatory and cancellation of bails, from terrorist attacks murders and rapes to sexual harassment, there is litigation, there is a judgement. Faces are different, facts are different, issues are different, laws are different but you always have a litigation touching every facet of human co-existentialism and a judge delivering a judgement determining the cause. One party loosing other party winning. No other authority in human civilization today has this sort of power vested in it.

  From the first breath to the last, every human being is bound by laws, whether he likes it or not, whether he is aware about them or not. Lawmen has to continuously think and feel and work in the direction, that truth and justice will at the end manifest itself in the mundane world, our entire approach is firmly established on the premise of satyamev jayate. This is common to all jurisprudence, to all judicial systems and to all persons associated with judiciary. If truth and justice is common to all and the entire effort of every lawman is to enable the cosmic truth find itself in all laws and all litigation, it is time for re-appreciating the role of lawmen in giving the direction which alone can lead to human development.  

The development towards a positive social order is nothing but establishment of Rule of Law as contra-distinguished from Rule of person Lawmen has always played the most important role in the development and establishment of human values in the social frame work. Hiroshima and Iraq wars are effects and not causes. They occurred because lawmen failed the decision makers or in other words, because the man who matter did not listen to the lawmen. When battles are fought every one is a looser. Wars will continue to thwart the progress of this world, if people are unable to settle disputes across the table. Wars will continue to break the economics and prosperity of people if men will not listen to lawmen. When people who matter rely more on their own strengths and charge ignorant people passions, we have exploitation, brutality and violence which are antithetic to the rule of law. When the basis of decision making is vested interests or achieving personal power the decisions can never be reasonable, just and proper. The whole process of reasoning is a mere justification of a decision already taken and that is the reason why politicians cannot be leaders for human development in e-age.  

Believe you me, my friends, in this third wave of e-age, where cross cultures exist in every corner of every country and we have a pluralistic society in place, in this e-age where the whole range of activities coexist simultaneously in our bed rooms on a remote and where every one of us can without any limitation of caste, sex, age, location have unrestrained communication with any other person at any time, it is time for this august gathering to consider, whether the fundamental doctrine which has dominated the agriculture and industrial age needs deeper reflection and deconstruction. At this moment when people are thinking of a common global legal functionality like a World Law Organisation, the right direction to globalisation can only be given if we are able to redefine the fundamental presumption that has in theory governed the balance of powers for over two centuries, which has also seen the rise and fall of common law kingdom and socialism.  

The world is now connected differently and people are not ready and willing to accept things on their face value. The e-age generation is also ready and willing to give every other person his due. There is a respect and admiration for a person with better talent and for those ho has capacity to burn midnight oil. Being somebodys son or belonging to a caste group will not alone give name and fame to any one, he may be able to get a post or some position. Every one will have to establish his metal on his own strength and get what is the market value for it. Lawmen can now enforce equality with more definitiveness then ever  

The limited role assigned to the judiciary, of merely interpreting laws made by the legislature, has dramatically changed in the later half of the last century and in the game of actual balance power it now seems that the basis of the presumption does not fit in this new era of globalisation. Judiciary does not remain to be the weakest limb of the government. It is time to recognise the power of thought, knowledge and keyboard and give it its due. In none of the democracies, judiciary is playing a small role or has a small role to play. Judges, ably aided by advocates and academicians play a much larger and vital role in the governance of every country, be it US Supreme Court, High Court of Australia, House of Lords or Supreme Court of India, they are centers of power.

  Every judge of every court, when his conscious is shaken and feels that illegality, arbitrariness and exploitation is being perpetrated, he puts his foot down to regulate it and also uses judgments as a tool for social change. Judges sanction the policies and are capable of determining its impact in the changing social milieu. Lawmen are man of word. Day in and day out they spend their time playing with words and word content and meaning, with rights and duties, with liberty and exploitations and arrive at truth and justice, which every human beings seeks to achieve for himself. A judge has to always think for action on which great interests depends and thereby direct social changes in the right direction.

  The judges are not trying to play a larger role, but in democratic set ups in e-age, where coalition and networking works, their roles has got to be redefined. It is time that the role of lawmen should be placed in the right perspective and framework, by lawmen here. The role of the judges is akin to rishies i.e. they have to test the validity of the laws laid down by the legislature based on their experience of life and vision of direction of society and culture and also to supervise that the laws laid down are properly implemented and administered. The basic difficulty is not in laying down the law, but in implementation of the laws, which are framed to eliminate one mischief or another played by some mischief. No law seems be fully implementable, there is always somebody who wishes to break it. Time has established that there is always a vested interest while making every law and not a single law is framed, which can be successfully implemented to the hilt. There is not a single law framed by any legislature the violation of which has not to be tolerated by the society. Most successful people today are not nor law abiding citizens but are law violators and that re-balanced by lawmen alone. The manipulators make the laws and law govern the people who wish to live without manipulation.

  The greatest achievement of the e-age is that it has effectively broken and removed the barrier of colour, religion, age, sex, geographical area, caste and that is the true meaning of globalisation. For the first time in the history of mankind the test of every great idea, thought or product is its capacity to bring greatest good and utility to the greatest number. The recognition or rejection is instantaneous and money must move to the competent creator and not to the broker middleman and that is the direction which lawmen has to give. Lawmen will have to protect the integrated, hardworking and diligent man from corrupt, relaxing manipulator.

  Lawmen can successfully direct the world to a peaceful, happy place to live where every one has the confidence that truth and justice will dominate and prevail or lawmen can continue to live in their fools paradise that they have no major role to play in global politics, with limited role to merely interpret the word of the legislature and policies of the bureaucrats, who have their vested interests in existence of a lop sided, ignorant and chaotic society.  

Today world is developing competition beyond redemption. Using dialectics for arriving at truth is the profession of law men, it is lawmen alone who can ameliorate the condition of man kind. Politicians who are meddling with the science of achieving power and others like bureaucrats, media, industrialists, entertainers, sportspersons etc. who are merely helping each other to be the fore runner in the economic rat race have no interest to rise above the vox populi, the voice of the people and provide not what is desired by the people, but what can benefit the people. Nobody wishes to take the burden of decision making process and every one is looking up to lawmen to resolve all issues. No body except lawmen have time and devotion to ameliorate the condition of mankind, using rule of law and that is also the demand of their profession, more so in the wave of globalisation, for which they alone are best equipped.

  Long live lawmen and judiciary.

  Aruneshwar Gupta  

*Conference held by Indian Institute of Comparative Law & University of Rajasthan on Globalization Global Prosperity Impact on Human Life at Jaipur February 21-22, 2004