Without liberty life is nothing, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said today, remarking that one feels "half-dead" if one loses one's liberty without due procedure of the law being followed.
The chief justice made the remark during his speech at an event of a private university in Gautam Buddh Nagar's Greater Noida this evening.
The CJI referred to the 12th century Magna Carta to say that it was a document at one point of time, but now it is a symbol, a metaphor as it stands as a pillar for a properly and constitutionally governed democracy.
"Be it a sunny afternoon, wintery night or a rainy evening, neither you nor I can adjust without the cherished values of democracy which welcomes liberty in its whole.
"Sans liberty life is nothing. You lose your life, you may lose it, you never know. When you lose your liberty without due procedure of the law being followed, you feel like half dead. Because life is dearer to you, but liberty is dearest," he told the students at Galgotias University.
Referring to American history, he quoted Thomas Jefferson, the founding father of the US and its third president, to say: "When a government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
He read out the court's observation in the matter without quoting the judgment to say, "If intellectual prowess, a natural or cultivated power of creation is interfered with without the permissible facet of law, the concept of creativity paves the path of extinction. And when creativity dies, values of civilization corrode."