Cuttack, May 7: Chief Justice of India Tirath Singh Thakur today described lawyers as "agents of social change".
Justice Thakur, who attended the third convocation ceremony of the National Law University Odisha, emphasised on the need for an "inclusive society" that creates "a conducive environment" for the underprivileged, who are often neglected. He said legal education and role of lawyers would be incomplete if it did not help in the growth of every sections of the society.
The Chief Justice was given a guard of honour and a high-mast Tricolour was unfurled on the occasion. "Developing an inclusive society is a formidable task which would remain incomplete if the underprivileged people are denied justice," Thakur said, while stressing on the need for adherence to protection of the human as well as fundamental rights.
Dwelling on the role of the bench and bar, Justice Thakur said the bench always needed "strong, hard working, innovative and conscious bar" to make law relevant for the entire society. He said lawyers should inculcate the moral responsibility of helping people and never lose touch with the masses. Also present at the event were chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Orissa High Court Chief Justice and varsity chancellor Vineet Saran and Supreme Court judge Dipak Misra.
Around 135 students were conferred with BA LLB, BBA LLB and LLM degrees and two were awarded PhD. Seventeen gold medals were given to meritorious students during the ceremony. While Pragalbha Priyakar bagged as many as four gold medals for topping the BA LLB (honours) programme, highest score in criminal law, commercial law and intellectual property law, Pallabi Sengupta got three gold medals for securing the second rank in BA LLB (honours) programme, highest score in constitutional law and personnel law. The other gold medallists were Pracheta Kar, Subhi Gaur, Dhruv Tiwari, Diksha Goyal, Anand Swaroop Das, Meghna Mohapatra, Kartik Pant, Aishwarya Singh and Harmeet Kaur. Ananya Bharadwaj got a gold medal for topping the LLM programme, while Amarendra Kumar Ajit and Nachiketa Mittal were given PhD degrees.
