NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over rising intolerance and crimes against women, Supreme Court judge N V Ramana said courts could decide cases but only citizens could stop spiralling crime by imbibing human values in their children and neighbourhoods.

Speaking at a conference on ‘Human Values and the Legal World’ at Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh on Saturday, Justice Ramana said, “We have been seeing a steady rise in cases of sexual assault on women as also intolerance in society , mainly because of degradation of values . As citizens, if we do not speak up for values and precautions, we cannot protect anyone from such heinous crimes.”

He said judiciary was under a mandate to seek out the truth and punish the guilty. “But that is only one of the five values, others being love, right conduct, peace and non-violence.

We cannot sit quietly in a corner and think that no anti-social element or bad neighbourhood will affect us. Moral from this is that we must discuss, share, express and try to settle problems at the community level by imbibing the five human values,” he said.

Justice Ramana said absence of love and good conduct coupled with non-adherence to non-violence “is the root cause behind flooding of courts with family disputes, commercial litigation and criminal cases”.

He praised the Sathya Sai Seva Organisation for making efforts to spread human values in society through selfless service.

However, he said a country’s legal system could not be built only through strict legal frameworks. “It requires judges as artists to imbibe humanism into the law. A balance must be struck between rules, principles, percepts, norms and values even though judiciary is under a mandate to protect truth and truth alone,” he said.

He said the Constitution’s Preamble recognises law and morality as important pillars for nation building. He said Indian judiciary was at the forefront of protecting rule of law.

