Courts have a duty to intervene whenever rights guaranteed by the Constitution are violated, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said on Monday (October 12, 2026), stressing that promises of dignity, equality, liberty, and justice must translate into meaningful protection for citizens.
In his address, NHRC chairperson and former Supreme Court judge Justice V. Ramasubramanian described the office of the CJI as one of the country’s most powerful and influential positions, but also one of its most vulnerable ones. The CJI also spoke about the expanding scope of Article 21, noting that the right to life and personal liberty has evolved into a guarantee of a dignified life, encompassing health, food, shelter, livelihood, and a clean environment.
“The true measure of a human rights institution is therefore not only the number of cases it decides, but whether it can be heard by those who are least able to make themselves heard,” the CJI said, citing the examples of an undertrial prisoner who has never met his advocate, a migrant worker without papers, an elderly person abandoned by their family, a person with a disability who finds every door locked, and a woman who works from dawn to dusk but remains invisible to the systems meant to protect her.
