Supreme Court Starts Uploading Of Judgments In Regional Languages [Read Judgments]

From today, we can start reading the Apex Court judgments in regional languages. The official web portal of Supreme Court of India has begun uploading of judgments in regional languages.

In a function held today, Justice S A Bobde released the translation of Supreme Court judgments into regional languages. President of India Ram Nath Kovind received the first copy. Justice Bobde also officially released it on the Supreme Court website.

A separate tab titled 'Vernacular Judgments' can be seen in the home page of the Supreme Court Portal. As of now, the judgments are seen translated in six vernacular languages: Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia and Telugu.

The judgment of the case originating from a particular state is seen translated to the language of that state. That is, the judgment is in Kannada, if the case originated from Karnataka.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had recently cleared the indigenously developed software by the electronic software wing of the Supreme Court. Unlike orders written in English that are posted on the website on the day they are passed, the translated versions would be uploaded a week later, the report said.

The President of India Shri Ramnath Kovind, in October 2017, had mooted this idea and had said that a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgement are made available by the High Courts in the local or regional language. While speaking at the Valedictory Function of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of High Court of Kerala, the president had said: "It is important to not only take justice to the people, but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a language they know. High Courts deliver judgements in English, but we are a country of diverse languages. The litigant may not be conversant with English and the finer points of the judgement may escape him or her. The litigating parties will thus be dependent on the lawyer or another person to translate the judgement. This can add to time and cost."

"Perhaps a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgments are made available by the Honourable High Courts in the local or regional language. This could happen in a period of say 24 or 36 hours after the judgement is pronounced. The language could be Malayalam in the Honourable Kerala High Court or Hindi in the Honourable Patna High Court, as the case may be.", he had further suggested.

A few days ago, the President had again stressed the need to have judgments translated into regional languages to increases access to justice. "It is important to not only take justice to the people, but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a language they know. Perhaps a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgements are made available by the High Courts in the local or regional language", he had said.

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