“The voice of justice must be reasoned but never cold, firm but never arrogant, constitutional, while remaining humane.” With these words, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Tuesday called for a more humane and accessible judiciary, saying India’s constitutional promise will remain hollow unless institutions “remember the human being behind the dispute”.
He was speaking at the launch of The Voice of Justice: Justice Gavai Speaks, a curated collection of speeches by former Supreme Court judge Justice (Retd.) Bhushan R. Gavai, at the Vice President’s Enclave here.
Describing the book as more than a commemorative volume, the CJI said it captures the thinking behind the bench. “A judgment declares the law; it decides rights, records reasons, and speaks with authority. But it is also written within the discipline of a case… it cannot always reveal the larger concerns that occupy a judge,” he noted. “Speeches allow a jurist to speak more directly to the profession and to society.”
CJI Surya Kant identified three core strands in Justice Gavai’s addresses. The first is access. “The Constitution is not self-executing. Its promises become real only when institutions remember the human being behind the dispute,” he said, citing Justice Gavai’s repeated emphasis on free legal aid, undertrial prisoners and Article 39A. “His reflections… are a reminder that justice cannot depend on the accident of one’s resources.”
The second is the interplay of rights and social justice. The third, he said, is institutional temperament in a rapidly changing society.
“This is where the book speaks most clearly to the present moment,” the CJI observed. “Today, technology often moves faster than doctrine. Inequalities persist despite formal equality. And institutions strive to retain public trust in an age of impatience.”
He said Justice Gavai’s speeches do not offer “easy answers” but provide a method: “That the Law retain its human face even while modernising, that Courts remain accessible even while managing complexity, and that constitutional morality must not remain a phrase reserved for judgments.”
“This Book is essential reading because it tells us exactly why the ‘voice of justice’ must be reasoned, but never cold. Why it must be firm, but never arrogant. And why it must be constitutional, while remaining humane,” CJI Suryakant said.
Concluding, he called the publication “not only a literary achievement but a moral compass” and expressed hope it would reach “court libraries, law schools, judges’ chambers, and, most importantly, into the minds of young lawyers who will shape the next chapter of our constitutional journey.”
The Voice of Justice: Justice Gavai Speaks has been published by Thomson Reuters
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