SPEECH OF HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE VIJENDER JAIN, CHIEF JUSTICE, PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT ON THE INAUGURATION OF ASIA PACIFIC JURIST ASSOCIATION, LUDHIANA CHAPTER ON 22ND AUGUST, 2007.

Mr.B.K.Goel, President of the Asia Pacific Jurist Association, Hon'ble Judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court, General Secretary of Asia Pacific Jurist Association, other members on the dais off the dais.

I have come here to inaugurate the Asia Pacific Jurist Association, Ludhiana Chapter and the inaugural function has generated tremendous interest in the activities of APJA. I am confident that APJA Ludhiana Chapter will have permanent impact with its activities in Ludhiana. The participants have done hard work on the papers read before you, I was going through the same. You require a full day deliberations and discussions on these papers. I am sure that under the stewardship of Mr.Goel, APJA Ludhiana Chapter will be in the fore front not only in India but in whole of the Asia Pacific Region. Recently there was a conference in Manila, it was Asian Justice Forum, which was attended from India by Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India, myself, the Chief Justice of Australia, Chief Justice of Philippines, Judges of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Thailand and a Judge from Indonesia, they were at a Forum and you will be glad to know that APJA was one of the Co-sponser of this conference alongwith the Supreme Court of Phillippines.

Much had been said earlier and some of the speakers have given blame for environmental degradation on Government. Similarly Industry has blamed government agencies but I must say that blame game must stop. Government has not done enough, Industry is not responsible, some other agencies are responsible. Because if blame game continues and environmental degradation is not addressed, victims are people of this Country, the people of the State. There has to be a common endeavour by all the stake holders whether they are lawyers, whether they are NGO's whether they are students, whether they are Universities, whether they are manufacturing association, how to preserve our environments. If we go on blaming that what we have been doing for the last 60 years, degradation of our environment will not stop. It is very auspicious day for me, when you are having a new era in Ludhiana by establishing the APJA chapter but my appeal to all of you is to have a alliance of like minded stake-holders to preserve and conserve environment. Everybody knows water is polluted, everybody knows air is polluted. Who is responsible. We ourselves are responsible. There has to be introspection and that is the main idea of launching APJA in Ludhiana. We have to create awareness about environmental degradation, to create a mechanism for enforcement against environmental hazards. We have to sensitize the people. It is common in this Country, we clean our house from inside and put everything on the road, "Mera Ghar to Saaf Ho Gaya". This mind set must change. So, we ourselves are responsible. It is not a question whether you are polluting the environment 1% or 60%. Pollution is pollution.

The quality of water which is required for potable purpose or for agriculture purposes quality has to be maintained. We are not going into the law. I am not here today as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. My brother Judges, who are sitting here, they are 12 in number, they are not here as Judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court. They are here because there is a feeling among our Judges as Citizens of this Country that they also have a role to play. They will return today back to Chandigarh, read the files for tomorrow, have to prepare themselves to listen to arguments of lawyers and decide the matters but there is a urge in them as a Citizen to do something for environment.

I was very happy when I was taken to a School prior to this function, there was plantation of trees and I was equally happy when the Municipal Councilor of the area met me and said Chief Justice Sahib, I will take care of all these 14 herbal trees and I will ensure that every house-hold in her constituency must implant a tree and must preserve it. There has to be a movement. There has to be awakening. There has to be sensitization regarding your ecology, your environment, your surroundings, your own behaviour.

In our ancient scriptures i.e. Rigveda, Ahooti is to Vanaspati, for preservation of Vanaspati. The oldest scripture, which we have thousands of years back. We have also to understand that it is the developed world, which has polluted human mankind and the pollution is not limited to one City or one region. What happens to the Ozone layers or mother planet earth. 25% of the air pollution is caused by United States. These are certain issues, when you have a APJA Chapter in Ludhiana, I am sure you will consider threadbare these issues relating to environmental degradation.

I would like to emphasize that APJA has three principle activities and these activities are apart from environmental degradation which are also very important for all of us, who are in the legal fields as well as those who belong to financial and industrial sectors; Alternative Disputes Resolution Mechanism i.e. Arbitration, Meditation and Conciliation, because time has come when people can not wait, particularly people in trade and Industry, they want their matters to be decided expeditiously, if there has to be economic growth in India. Arbitration in India has been prevalent for centuries, in older days we used to have a Salish (Arbitration), on whom the parties relied on account of their integrity and non bias attitude and the matter used to be adjudicated. Another important aspect of the activities which APJA has undertaken is Alternative Disputes Redressal because I am of the firm opinion and belief that neither the Anglo Saxon Jurisprudence nor Civil Law Jurisprudence or any other jurisprudence in this world is ancient than the legal jurisprudence, which we inherited in our Country. As a matter of fact, the Ancient Legal Jurisprudence has been buried under the debris because we thought that relying on Anglo Saxon Jurisprudence is fashionable and acceptable, otherwise 5000 years back we had Nyaya Shastra and Dharam Shastra. Nyaya Shastra is Statutory Law and Dharam Shastra is Constitutional Law but we don't feel proud of what we are possessed of as our legacy.

I was addressing meeting organized by chapter of industries and commerce in Cochin last year where they asked me Sir why we have to have a clause where forum of Arbitration is decided in the international arbitration agreement having place of arbitration in Paris, London or Hongkong. I said the fault is yours. No investor comes to India simply for friendship. Everybody comes to make money but there is a tendency on the part of our manufacturers, our people, who are running industries, at that time they think that they are at the mercy of others as they are giving them orders. They do not insist on arbitration clause and the arbitration shifts from India to abroad and when the cost of arbitration becomes high, they are not in a position to spend that cost and ultimately loose the battle. Through APJA, the legal fraternity should make use of these new concepts with regard to International Law.

Another field is Intellectual Property Right. There was a conference, which was held last year in Vigyan Bhawan on new patent regime. The outcome and deliberation of that conference is something which people from Ludhiana may learn. What kind of new patent regime it is. On account of paucity of time I will not delve on in. I would love to do so, may be some time else.

It is a great privilege for me to be with you to inaugurate the APJA chapter at Ludhiana. Please don't concentrate only on one aspect, which is important aspect of course as Ludhiana is largest industrial city of Punjab, Lawyers have to equip themselves with the new trends, which are emerging on Intellectual Property Right and Patent Regime.

With these words, I thank you all and wish APJA Chapter, Ludhiana a great success.