The President's speech was read out by the National Law University Chancellor and Orissa High Court Chief Justice D H Waghela at the convocation function here.
Mukherjee had cut short his two-day Odisha visit midway on Friday night and left for New Delhi as his wife Suvra fell ill and was hospitalised.
Hailing the Constitution as the most inspiring and noble, the president called upon the law students to study it and understand Indian political systems and processes properly.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Justices Dipak Misra, V Gopal Gowda and Amitava Roy of Supreme Court were part of the Convocation procession along with University Chancellor Justice Waghela, Vice-chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao and Registrar Dolly Jabbal.
A law journal of the university 'Access to Justice' was released at the function and a single scholar Rangin Ballav Tripathy was awarded the PhD degree, while 42 students got LLM degrees and 109 got LLB degrees.
