Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that India was the “Mother of Democracy” and that the Constitution represented its core values and “embraced all the cultural and moral emotions of the country”.

Addressing Constitution Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court, Modi urged the youth to learn about the core constitutional values, and about the role several women had played in the drafting of the Constitution.

“The expression ‘We the people’ used in the Preamble to the Constitution is a call (for) trust and (represents a) solemn oath.... It is this spirit of the Constitution that is the spirit of India, which has been the ‘Mother of Democracy’ to the world,” Modi said. “In modern times, our Constitution has embraced all the cultural and moral emotions of the nation.”

The audience included Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, other Supreme Court and high court judges, Union law minister Kiren Rijiju and junior law minister S.P. Baghel.

Modi said India’s Constitution was known for its “openness, futuristic and modern vision” that had been further consolidated by the continuing contributions from all the three arms of democracy -- legislature, executive and judiciary.

“There is a need for the country’s youth to know what had happened in the debates of the Constituent Assembly at that time.... Many people today are not aware of the great contributions made by several women during the drafting of the Constitution — by women from the underprivileged sections like Dakshayani Velayudhan.”

Modi said Velayudhan had made important interventions on many subjects related to Dalits and labourers. He added that women such as Durgabhai Deshmukh, Hansa Mehta and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur had made significant contributions to issues related to women.

The Prime Minister paid tributes to B.R. Ambedkar and all the other members of the Constituent Assembly.

“It is our collective responsibility that the identity of India as the Mother of Democracy (is) further strengthened,” the Prime Minister said.

Justice Chandrachud, in his address, stressed the need to take the justice delivery system to people’s doorstep.

“I feel now the time has come when it is essential that the judiciary reaches the people and not expect the people to reach out to the judiciary,” he said, urging the chief justices of the high courts to continue consolidating the courts’ digital infrastructure so that virtual hearings too could be held with physical ones.

Justice apps

Modi launched four digital initiatives for quick and effective justice delivery.

The Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS Mobile App 2.0, Digital Court and S3WaaS Websites were launched under the “e-court project” as part of Constitution Day celebrations. The project is a collaborative exercise between the law ministry and the Supreme Court.

The Virtual Justice Clock will exhibit vital statistics of the justice delivery system at the court level, such as details of the cases instituted, cases disposed and those pending. The clock can be accessed on the district courts’ websites.

JustIS Mobile App 2.0 is a tool available to Supreme Court and high court judges to monitor the pendency and disposal of cases under them and their subordinates.

Digital Court is an initiative to make court records available to judges in the digitised form.

S3WaaS Websites is a cloud-service framework to generate, configure, deploy and manage websites for publishing specified information and services related to the district judiciary.