JAMMU: Celebrating Republic Day, the Reasearch and Advocacy Group (RAAG), a registered organization involved in legal research comprising of legal professionals, Academicians, Journalists and scholars today held a program here in District Court Complex Jammu on the topic “Constitutional Morality Vis a Vis Public Morality in context of Indian society".
In the program besides advocate Deepak Sharma Convener of the RAAG, a large number of Lawyers also participated, Prominent among those include Advocate Dewakar Sharma Deputy Advocate General, Advocate Karan Parasher, Advocate Rajan Choudhry, Advocate Nazuk Kalsotra, Advocate Nidhi Sharma, Advocate Madhvi, Advocate Aditya Raina, Adv. Harsh Dubey & Others.
While introducing the participants and opening the event, Advocate Deepak Sharma, Convener of the RAAG in his welcome address stated that though constitution mentions 'morality' in part three of the constitution restraining some fundamental rights becoming absolute but there is no mention of the ‘constitutional morality’ as an expression in the Indian constitution. This concept has attained much significance and triggered academic legal debate after its use as an expression by the Supreme court in some recent landmark judgements including that in Sabhrimala Case which allowed entry of women of all age groups in Sabharimala temple and Navtej Singh Johar case in which SC decriminalized same sex relation between consenting adults but the court fell short of applying such doctrine of constitutional morality in same sex marriage case.
He further stressed that constitutional morality is the facet of legal positivism and many a times when it comes in conflict with Public Morality, it enters in to the situation to answer whether law brings morality in the society or it is the morality of the society that brings law. He also stressed that the courts must interpret constitutional morality vis a vis public morality in a harmonious way rather than prevailing one upon the other , as the public morality is the outcome of the long standing experiences , beliefs and values of the society otherwise it could become 'imposed morality'.
Dewakar Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, emphasized that the concept of ‘Constitutional Morality’ is highly subjective and must be applied with caution as it can be used to justify different actions and decisions depending on the perspective of the individual or institution interpreting it.
Many other participants also expressed their views and held that the expression 'Constitutional Morality’ is not defined and thus it must be defined so that it becomes a standard more particularly in the cases where the rights and liberties of individuals are pitted against religious or cultural practices. The participants were also of the view that before applying the doctrine of constitutional morality by the court, there must be efforts to create an informed public opinion and it must be celebrated freely so that who are to be governed by it must own it. The vote of thanks was delivered by Advocate Karan Parasher.
