Over the last 50 years, the Supreme Court of India has established itself as one of the indisputably great courts of the world. No other court in the free world exercises jurisdiction over more than a small fraction of the nearly one billion men, women and children who form the population of India. The Golden Jubilee of this Court is accordingly a matter of much more than local importance. I am greatly honoured to have this opportunity to pay tribute to its achievements over this crucial and formative period of its and the country’s history.
The honour and the pleasure are all the greater for a visitor from the United Kingdom since for over two centuries, for better or worse — I hope not wholly for worse — our fortunes and histories were so closely intertwined. [Read more…]
Note: This Article was first published in Supreme Court Cases (2000) 1 SCC J-29.It has been reproduced with the kind permission of Eastern Book Company.
† On the occasion of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Supreme Court of India on 26-11-1999 at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
*Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales