Work for the underprivileged, Chief Justice urges law students

Presiding over the first Habibullah Badsha Memorial Lecture under the Constitutional Law Society, Justice Banerjee called the students as successors of future law and told them to help those in need of legal aid but could not afford it. “As you help them, you could learn new things,” she said. 

She praised the TNNLS for setting high standards in legal education and urged the students and the lawyers to be committed to the independence of the judiciary, wherever and in whichever position they are in. 

The TNNLS was established with an aim to provide quality legal education, at an initial contribution of Rs 100 crore by the state government. It’s a residential university under the Tamil Nadu National Law Society. 

“With judiciary being the third pillar of Indian democracy, we all should uphold it by our professionalism. The judiciary should also be an independent body as it is associated with stakeholders starting from the judge to the lawyers and the assistants,” she said. 

Highlighting the honour and respect earned by Habibullah Badsha and recounting his earlier days in Tiruchy, where he was enrolled as a part-time lecturer, Arvind P Datar, senior advocate, spoke on the need for balancing right to privacy and state surveillance. 

He then explained his position in the Aadhaar case and the arguments and counter-arguments presented before the Supreme Court. He also explained why the compulsory requirement of Aadhaar for social security schemes was against its very “voluntariness” and compared it with the Social Security Number which was mandatory in the US.