Lawyers have contributed significantly in nation building, protecting Constitution: Amit Shah

Ahmedabad, Mar 9 (PTI) Lawyers have contributed significantly in nation building, in getting us freedom and framing our Constitution, Union minister Amit Shah said on Sunday while asserting that the legal profession is a sacred duty.

Addressing a gathering of 11,000 young lawyers at the Bar Association of Gujarat's oath taking ceremony, Shah said they are going to be professionally involved in the process of protecting the Constitution and providing justice to citizens.

"The profession you are joining today is not just a profession but a sacred duty - to strengthen the Constitution and democracy and implement the constitution rights to protect the property, body and honour of 140 crore citizens," he said.

There are some judgments in which learned jurists have helped the Supreme Court shape the law of the country, he said, adding this judicial process has done the work of protecting the original spirit of the Constitution.

Several great freedom fighters and those who played significant roles in framing the Constitution were eminent lawyers, Shah said.

He told the lawyers they are joining the profession when the Constitution has completed 75 years, the Parliament has made radical changes in all three criminal laws and adopted new laws, and the country is now ranked as the world's fifth largest economy.

He said they will be associated with the responsibility of protecting and smoothly implementing the visionary, transparent and inclusive Constitution that the founding fathers made.

Shah said the lawyers are taking oath a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured social, economic and political justice through various decisions, like abolishing triple talaq and giving equal rights to Muslim women, bringing in the new education policy that gives youth and adolescents skill-based education, that too in their mother tongue.

In the field of economic justice, Modi has ended the complications of 39,000 laws, merged banks, solved the problems of NPA and made the Indian economy the fifth largest in the world, Shah said.

"Abolishing Article 370, which people were waiting for for years, and reaching 12 settlements in 10 years to ensure peace in the North East are examples of political justice. Providing 33 per cent reservation to women in law-making institutions with the Nari Shakti Vandana Act is also a step in that direction," he said.

He said the trust of the people of the country is still intact in the judiciary, but if it takes 20 years to get justice, then this trust cannot last for long.

"Therefore, three new criminal laws have been brought in to ensure timely justice. In the new laws, some processes have been rationalised, time limits set, and arrangements made to complete small and big cases quickly through summary trials," he said. PTI KA BNM

Source: PTI