New Delhi, Nov. 30 -- Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said on Saturday that the strength of the Constitution lies in the probity of judges who interpret and defend it as he underlined that any pursuit of justice cannot be achieved without integrity and honesty. Inaugurating an International Convention on Independence of Judiciary at the OP Jindal Global University in Haryana, CJI said, "In an era where truth must compete with noise - where deepfakes distort, misinformation multiplies, and digital arrests have become disturbingly routine - integrity and honesty are no longer lofty ideals; they are instruments of survival." The CJI also inaugurated the world's largest moot court inside the university campus in Sonipat named as the International Mooting Academy for Advocacy, Negotiation, Dispute Adjudication, Arbitration, and Resolution - or IMAANDAAR which is the synonym of honesty in Hindi. Linking the acronym IMAANDAAR with the pursuit of justice, CJI said, "Constitution's strength does not lie in ink or parchment, but in the probity of those who interpret and defend it.speaking from the vantage of experience, integrity and honesty are also the only legitimate shortcut to genuine success. The very ideal that the practice of law, and indeed the pursuit of justice, must always aspire to is imandari, or integrity." Justice BV Nagarathna, the only woman judge in the Supreme Court and who is destined to be the first woman Chief Justice of India in 2027, touched upon the aspect of judicial independence from the standpoint of public perception. She said that a judgment is written in ink, not sand and legal fraternity and those in the government should respect the judgment instead of attempting to "toss it out" when judges have retired. "An evolved understanding of judicial independence warrants the assurance by our system of laws that a judgment once rendered by a judge will hold its anchor in time for it is written in ink and not in sand," justice Nagarathna said. Stating that it is the duty of the legal fraternity and governance framework to respect a judgement for what it is, she said that objections may be raised only in accordance with traditions embedded in law and not as an "attempt to toss it (judgment) out solely because the faces have changed." Sharing her views at the international convention, she said, "The conduct of a judge has to be more than merely lawful.Independence is preserved not by what we say in our judgments or in our defences but by what we refuse to do in our private conduct." She said that independence has often been interpreted as impartiality and insularity. "Impartiality can be thought of as related to judges' attitudes and beliefs as well as their behaviour vis-a-vis particular political and social actors. On the other hand, insularity relates to the notion that courts must not become grounds for realization of political aims," she said. On the occasion, the new moot court hall brought history to life by re-enacting the 1973 Kesavananda Bharti case when a 13-judge bench of the Supreme Court gave the landmark verdict that laid down the basic structure doctrine which proscribed the government from amending the Constitution's foundational principles. Joining CJI and justice Nagarathna on the moot court bench were 11 other Supreme Court judges. CJI Kant said the basic structure doctrine was an act of "constitutional archaeology"where the judiciary, that was barely two decades old, refused to falter under pressure. "The Supreme Court refused to bend the Constitution into the shape of convenience. In that single act of restraint, it demonstrated that a democracy need not grow old to grow wise," he said....