NEW DELHI: Young lawyers and members of NGO, Forum for Human Rights and Social Justice, Jammu including, Deepak Sharma, Dewaker Sharma, Advocate J & K High Court and Kaushal Bhasin,Social Activist attended two days National Legal Convention from 31st of August to 01 September here at Haryan Bhawan in New Delhi representing Jammu wherein legal professional, human rights activists and environmentalists from across the country were also present.
The theme of the event was Access to Justice & Environment, Role of NGOs and Human Rights. Justice(Retd) Adarsh Kumar Goel, Chairperson of National Green Tribunal and Dr. Anirudh Rajpoot, member United Nation’s International Law Commission and former Chairperson of the drafting committee of the International Commission presided the proceedings of the event. The NGT Chairperson expressed concern about rising graph of pollution.
Advocate Deepak Sharma, representative of NGO Forum for Human Rights and Social Justice, Jammu during his address to the gathering elucidated in details about the issue of human rights viz a viz use of information gathering under Right to Information Act to further use it for petitioning to access justice in Human Rights violation cases, he also appealed the legal professionals, environmentalists and NGO members present there to educate masses about not taking every issue of Human Rights, Environment, Consumer Rights and other alike issues directly to the Honourable High Courts as Public Interest Litigation without exhausting the options of alternative forums such as National Green Tribunal, State Pollution Control Boards, National and State Human Rights Commission and Consumer forums.
He said our conventional courts are already over burdened and when such public interest issues are argued in courts then the common man feel that only registered legal professionals can pursue such issues before the courts, he appealed the participants to aware and encourage common people to use these alternative forums themselves and strengthen these institutions.