Rights, responsibilities are complimentary: Governor

The spirit of the Constitution urged everyone to work for the welfare of the poor, the marginalised and the vulnerable while ensuring no one was left behind, Governor Jishnu Dev Varma said on Wednesday.

Addressing the participants of the Constitution Day programme convened here at the Telangana High Court premises, he said it was a holy day to honour the sacrifices of the founding leaders of the Constitution. The Governor called upon everyone to dedicate to the constitutional values. “The Constitution Day resonates profoundly with the spirit of Amrit Kaal as our nation strides towards a developed, self-reliant and globally influential India,” he said.

The rights and duties were complimentary. Progress can be achieved when citizens exercise their rights with deep sense of responsibility. Observing that the Constitution ‘was not merely a document but is the living source of our democracy’, he said it upheld the spirit of unity in diversity for more than seven decades.

The Governor recalled that Bharat Ratna and principal architect of the Constitution B.R. Ambedkar had said “the Constitution was not a mere lawyer’s document…it is a vehicle of life and its spirit is always the spirt of change”. The creation of Telangana State through constitutional mechanisms had demonstrated the foresight and flexibility of the Constitution in accommodating regional diversity while preserving national unity, he said.

High Court Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh said the highest tribute that can be paid to B.R. Ambedkar was to ensure his ideals did not remain on paper but became lived realities. The Constitution, often described as a black-and-white document, can guide people only when it entered not just the shelves of libraries or institutions but the everyday consciousness of the people, he said.

The responsibility of protecting the Constitution does not lie only with the judiciary. Even the legislature and executive cannot be held responsible solely. Educators teaching constitutional values, administrators implementing programmes, the media shaping public understanding and the civil society amplifying the rights and voices were equally important in protecting the Constitution, the CJ said.

Judges of the HC, Advocate General A. Sudarshan Reddy, Telangana Bar Council chairman A. Narasimha Reddy, Telangana High Court Advocates Association president A. Jagan and others were present.