Never equate justice with law since what is just may not be always legal,says Justice DY Chandrachud

Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar's 11th Convocation event was presided over by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who also gave the Convocation Address. Even though he couldn't be present in person, Justice Chandrachud recorded a greeting for the graduates.

Justice Chandrachud cautioned the students not to conflate "law" and "justice" in his talk to them. In his statement, he cited Professor WP Quigley's "Letter to a Law Student engaged in Social Justice" as the source for this guidance. He explained this in terms of Indian culture and said that Indians didn't have to look very far to understand the distinction between justice and the law. In order to further illustrate his point, he cited examples such as the 2005 grant of women's rights to coparcenary property and their equality in terms of property succession, the long absence of child labour laws in India, the recent rise in the demand for minimum wages around the globe, and the recent repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which outlawed sexual relations even between consenting adults of the same gender. He said that even though the institutions of law were unfair, all of these problems existed at the same time.

-Kshitij Srivastava