Visakhapatnam: The advent of digital age, science and technology and changing value systems have given a new dimension to Article 21 of the Constitution, said Supreme Court judge V Ramasubramanian in his keynote address at the fourth memorial lecture, organised by the Centre for Policy Studies and Visakhapatnam Public Library to pay tribute to legal luminary Durvasula Venkata Subba Rao.

Subba Rao, a former mayor of Visakhapatnam, was twice elected as chairman of Bar Council of India.

Justice Ramasubramanian, who spoke on the expanding horizons of Article 21, said many historians thought India will not survive as a democracy because of its diversity and would crumble in a few years’ time. “But all critics were proved wrong and India has today become a vibrant democracy,” he said, and cited examples of several Indian and foreign judgements elucidating the importance given to Article 21 which he said “was the heart of the Constitution”.

Ramasubramanian, who is also a former judge of Telangana high court, said with the advancement in science and technology, a new dimension has been added to Article 21. “A new concept called Cryonics has given an extended meaning to Article 21. Cryonics is the practice of preserving human bodies in extremely cold temperatures with the hope of reviving them sometime in the future. The idea is that, if someone has ‘died’ from a disease that is incurable today, he or she can be ‘frozen’ and then ‘revived’ in the future when a cure has been discovered,” the judge said.

Justice DVSS Somyajulu, high court judge and son of DV Subbarao, also spoke on the occasion.

