Ernakulam (Keralam) [India], October 31 : Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday described Attorney General for India R Venkataramani as a student who had carried forward the legacy and values of his mentor, renowned legal educationist Professor N R Madhava Menon.
He also presented him with the second Prof. (Dr.) NR Madhava Menon Memorial “Tribute of Honour” Award at the Kerala High Court.
Delivering the inaugural address at the award ceremony in Ernakulam, the CJI said there was a special symmetry to the occasion, as it brought together the legacy of Professor Menon and one of his most cherished students, who now occupies the highest office of legal counsel in the country.
Recalling Menon's contribution to legal education, the CJI said that in 1986, at the invitation of the Bar Council of India, he founded the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru and introduced the five-year integrated LL.B. programme, transforming legal education in the country.
Menon subsequently founded the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata and the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal. His central conviction, the CJI said, was that law, when taught rightly, could become an instrument of social transformation rather than merely a licence to practise a profession.
He also recalled Menon's commitment to making legal education accessible and socially relevant through curricula and legal aid clinics that placed the poor and marginalised at the centre of legal training.
Describing Menon's legacy as one that continued through the lawyers, judges and teachers he mentored, the CJI said his contributions to the legal fraternity went beyond the institutions he established.
Referring to Venkataramani's association with Menon, the CJI said the Attorney General joined the Government Law College in Pondicherry in 1974 after graduating in physics. Menon joined the same institution as its principal later that year, marking the beginning of what he described as a “guru-shishya bond of the truest kind”.
The CJI said Venkataramani had previously recalled how the seeds sown by his mentor met his own yearning to understand the ends of law and justice, with the college library becoming his second classroom.
Venkataramani subsequently carried his mentor's values into his legal practice. Across nearly five decades at the Bar, he has handled matters involving constitutional law, environmental law, taxation, tribal rights, and the rights of women and children, recalled the CJI.
Describing the Attorney General's temperament as measured, principled and unfailingly courteous, the CJI said these were qualities that no office could confer and that only a lifetime of learning could refine.
Calling the award a recognition of both Venkataramani's achievements and Menon's enduring influence, the CJI said it represented “a teacher's vision finding vindication in a student's achievement”.
Addressing the Attorney General, he said the honour carried the memory of a teacher who gave the nation its law schools and his students their sense of purpose. “Our truest monuments are not made of stone. They are the minds we shape and the institutions we leave behind,” the CJI said.