Law commission chief calls for Indianisation of legal system

National Law Commission chairman Dinesh Maheshwari has called for the Indianisation of the legal system. It is high time that the Indian justice delivery system was overhauled, making the whole system Bharatiya or specific to our civilisation, he said. Mr. Maheshwari was delivering a lecture on ‘Indian Knowledge System and Constitution’ in Lok Bhavan on Saturday.

The Indian value system was based on a combination of rights and duties, where duty was not a matter of convenience, but a matter of character, and welfare of all and collective conscience outweighed personal gains. The Constitution had thus been an inspiration for democracy world over and the values enshrined in the Constitution—justice, equality, liberty and fraternity—were basically Bharatiya values, he said. The profound heritage of the Indian knowledge system and its perennial connect with the ethos enshrined in the Constitution was remarkable.

Principles of dharma

He pointed out that the constitutional promise of justice enshrined in the Preamble was based on the ancient principles of dharma. “Dharma is righteous conduct that adapts and evolves with the moral order of each era. So is the concept of justice in our Constitution, it is neither rigid nor mechanical but resonates with constitutional morality, demanding law to remain sensitive to the changing needs of society,” he said.

He said that Indian civilisation was of a permanent character which had the capacity to withstand all onslaughts. The strength of India lay not in its unity, but in its essential diversity which had the capacity to absorb, assimilate, and imbibe the values of tolerance, acceptance, and non-violence.

Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, in his inaugural address, called upon people to propagate the rich cultural values and traditions of Indian civilisation. Our Constitution itself was a continuum of our civilisational ethos, Mr. Arlekar said.