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CJI opens legal aid clinic in Amritsar
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 15
Mere enforcement of law cannot help root out social evils such as female foeticide, domestic violence, child labour and trafficking. There is a need to change the mindset of the people on such issues, observed Chief Justice of India (CJI) Justice Altamas Kabir here today.

He was speaking after inaugurating a legal aid clinic at Khalsa College here. The CJI was accompanied by Supreme Court Judge Justice DK Jain, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana AK Sikri and other HC Judges, including Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice SS Saron. He also laid the foundation stone of Khalsa College of Law at Ram Tirath Road here. The judicial delegation later laid the foundation stone of the Alternate Disputes Redressal Cell at the District Courts complex.

Addressing the gathering at a seminar on “Role of youth in protecting rights of women, children and senior citizens” at Khalsa College, the CJI said government schemes could not be implemented in their true spirit as 70 per cent of the rural population wasn’t aware of its rights. Education was a must to achieve that end and it was the state’s responsibility to provide compulsory education to children at least up to 14 years of age, he said.

On the backlog of court cases, he said there was a need to improve infrastructure in the courts in the country. Many cases kept on dragging just because the police investigations were slow.

State Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was of the opinion that more stringent laws were needed to curb crime against women.