“We are not happy,” Chief Justice of India on 75th Independence Day

As India celebrated its 75th Independence Day, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said It was a time to “review” the policies and achievements.

“75 years is not a small period in a country’s history. When we used to go to school they used to give us piece of jaggery and a small flag. Even though today we get so much we are not happy. Our saturation levels have reached the bottom,” CJI said.

Calling the current situation “a sorry state of affairs”, CJI said there is “No proper debate”in the house.

While criticising the functioning of parliament in strong terms, he went on to say: “(There is) No clarity of laws. We do not know what the purpose of the law is. It is a loss to the public. This is when lawyers and intellectuals are not in the Houses.”

Justice Ramana was speaking at an event to mark the Independence Day at the Supreme Court.

“If we look at our freedom fighters, many of them were also in the legal fraternity. The first members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were filled with lawyers’ community,” Justice Ramana added.

He said: “Unfortunate what you see now in the Houses… Debates back then in the Houses were very constructive. I saw the debates over financial bills and very constructive points were made. Laws were discussed and deliberated. One had a clear picture of the legislative part of the law.”