India's secular system behind its progress, feels Katju

, Dec 4: Press Council of India Chairman

on Tuesday credited the country's

to its

and diversified system which unified people of different religions, languages and cultures.

Katju said this while delivering the sixth silver jubilee endowment lecture on "Constitutional jurisprudence" at Shri Dharmastala Manjunatheswara Law College and Centre for Post Graduate Studies and Research in Law here.

At the time of partition, there was a great pressure on our political leadership to declare India as a Hindu state, but our leadership resisted it and the country remained as a secular state, he said.

"It is because of our secular constitution, our society made progress. India is a centre of immigrants. People migrate to more comfortable areas from less comfortable areas and Indian constitution has given the right to its citizens to live anywhere in the country. The theory of Bhoomi Putra is unconstitutional," he said.

Speaking on the subject of the lecture, Katju said, 'Jurisprudence' was a study of law in general and it came into existence when private property came into existence.

"At present jurisprudence was facing great crisis all over the world. Constitutional jurisprudence places constitution at the top of the hierarchy. Indian constitution is based on western models and this has provided great help to backward communities to move forward," he said.

PTI