Young lawyers must be nation-builders: CJI Surya Kant

EReal propagation inherits the Republic as an unfinished throw, Chief justness of republic of india (CJI) Surya Kant said on Tuesday, urging young lawyers to see themselves not merely as “case-builders” but as “nation-builders” who remain conscious of how today’s disputes shape tomorrow’s society.Addressing the seventh convocation ceremony of the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL), Punjab, the CJI said that India’s Constitution was not a static monument but a living blueprint whose meaning ultimately depended on how lawyers, judges and institutions animated it through their work.“Our Constitution is not a monument cast in stone, it is an ingenious blueprint. The courts give it interpretation, institutions give it structure, but you must give it life. You must decide what India becomes next,” he said.Speaking to graduating students at the Patiala-based national law university, the CJI made a clear distinction between lawyers who focus narrowly on winning cases and those who think more expansively about the justice system and its societal consequences.“A case-builder focuses on the dispute of the day; a nation-builder concerns herself with the consequences of today’s dispute on tomorrow’s society,” he said, calling the difference between the two “fundamental”. While the former approach, he noted, was transactional, the latter was transformational.Justice Kant cautioned against reducing the legal profession to a narrow exercise of billing hours, mastering procedure, and securing victories. Such an approach, he said, might produce competent practitioners but not necessarily lawyers who strengthen democratic institutions. “The question is not whether you will build, but how you will build,” he told the graduating cohort, urging them to reflect on the values that would guide their professional choices.Placing the role of young lawyers in a broader national context, the CJI said today’s graduates were entering a legal world unlike any previous generation. India, he said, was modernising at a pace faster than its institutions could comfortably adapt, with disputes increasingly cutting across technology, economics, science and public policy.“Contracts now involve algorithms; property includes digital assets; families stretch across jurisdictions; environmental cases are battles against time itself,” he observed. In this evolving landscape, lawyers were expected not just to argue cases but to interpret complex realities, advise responsibly, innovate solutions and, above all, humanise the law.Justice Kant said that his repeated calls for mediation, judicial modernisation and a unified national judicial policy were not abstract ideas but appeals directed squarely at young lawyers who would eventually be responsible for carrying these reforms forward. “Words spoken from the Bench acquire meaning only when young minds convert them into action,” he said.Drawing from over four decades in the legal profession, the CJI outlined what he described as three pillars essential for careers that endure and truly matter -- integrity, compassion and curiosity. Integrity, he said, was not merely a personal virtue but institutional infrastructure. A justice system, he warned, could survive inefficiency but not the erosion of trust. “Cunning may win you applause for a season, but integrity earns you credibility for a lifetime,” the CJI said.The second pillar, compassion, Justice Kant described as essential to preventing justice from becoming mechanical and hollow. Drawing on experiences from both the Bar and the Bench, he spoke of instances where rigid adherence to procedure would have prolonged suffering, as well as moments where restraint, rather than urgency, best served dignity and fairness. “Compassion does not mean abandoning principle or lowering standards. It means recognising that the law exists for people, not paperwork,” he said.The third pillar, curiosity, Justice Kant described as the engine that keeps the law responsive in a rapidly changing world. Legal education, he said, was only a foundation, and lawyers who stopped learning would quickly become irrelevant. He urged students to engage thoughtfully with technology, learning to harness it without surrendering judgment.Concluding his address, Justice Kant returned to the idea with which he began -- that the Constitution was not self-executing and depended on those who worked within it to give it meaning. “Blueprints matter only when builders act upon them,” he said, urging the graduating students to build with integrity, compassion and curiosity so that those who came after them could “stand a little taller”.