There is a need for "empowering and educating" children to eradicate deep-rooted evils like corruption from the society, Chief Justice of India H L Dattu today said and highlighted the importance of legal literacy in schools and colleges.
The CJI, speaking at the inaugural function of Mass Legal Literacy Campaign and opening of legal literacy clubs in schools across the capital, also said all citizens should have equal opportunity to access the legal system.
Justice Dattu, also the Executive Chairman of National Legal Service Authority (NLSA), lauded the efforts of the Delhi State Legal Service Authority (DSLSA) for the initiative to spread legal awareness among children and youth.
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"Designing such a campaign in less than three months is a tremendous achievement which involves hard work of hundreds of individuals. I had told my brother judges during a discussion earlier that our country suffers from corruption which is deep rooted and we may not be in a position to eradicate this disease unless we start educating children and empowering them about their rights and duties," he said.
"We are far from being a society where all people have an equal opportunity to access legal system," the CJI said at the event organised by the DSLSA at Vigyan Bhawan here.
The CJI also asked DSLSA to train citizens to be active members of democracy instead of "passive receivers of orders" and also urged its resource persons to ensure that students get first hand experience of police stations, courts and Parliament as the theoretical knowledge alone will not serve the purpose.
Justice T S Thakur, Supreme Court judge, also expressed similar views and said the main objectives of the DSLSA programme are to spread awareness among students about their legal rights and duties and ensuring access to justice irrespective of their sufferings.
The CJI, Justice Thakur and others were taking part in the inauguration of DSLSA's Mass Legal Literacy Campaign.
The campaign will cover 900 government schools tomorrow where resource persons, including judiciary officers and lawyers would have interactive sessions with children selected by their respective school principals as a part of the legal literacy club.
