BENGALURU: The legal landscape must evolve, weaving a tapestry that accommodates differences, eradicates biases, and ensures substantive equality, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said here on Sunday.
He was delivering the inaugural Justice ES Venkataramiah Centennial Memorial lecture, organised by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU). He spoke on the Constitutional imperatives of the state, navigating discrimination in public and private spaces.
The CJI spoke extensively about the need for gender equality, eradicating discrimination in public and private spaces and the need for robust laws that can overcome these societal limitations. He quoted a judiciary report from 2023 which showed that only 30.4% of district court complexes have separate washrooms for persons with disabilities and other infrastructural support, and less than 30% have accessibility to wheelchairs.
“Rather than sharpening their arguments and submissions, the lawyer or litigant is forced to account for parking arrangements and spot washroom facilities inside the court complexes,” emphasised the CJI.
Commending Karnataka in its pursuit of disabled-friendly spaces, he added that the judiciary in the state is among the highest number of employers of persons with disability, particularly in the staff.
The CJI also touched upon gender pay parity and accepting the reality that many face discrimination in employment based on their sexuality. “This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is a harsh reality faced by many individuals,” he said. It is not uncommon to hear that when faced with the financial choice between the education of a male child and a female child, the family will choose in favour of the male child, he explained.
Not just private spaces, but despite women’s contributions to all spheres CJI said, “When a private home is a sight of employment for a house help, does the law protect the economic and personal rights, as much as it does of a corporate office employee?” He also delved into how homemakers are not remunerated for their services.
Explaining how the rule of law for public and private spaces differs, the CJI said that if the hierarchy persists in the private space and the law looks in the other way in the name of the sanctity of the household, we would be failing in the promise of equal protection of the law and qualifying it with a caveat based on the location of wrongdoing.
"This will be a diluted understanding of what privacy entails. It is not a cloak for infringement of rights,” he said. He added that technology had ended spatial constraints and the oppressed and oppressor must be identified, regardless of the place.