Supreme Court To Make Its Judgments Available In Regional Languages

In a good news for the litigants and regional language enthusiasts, the Supreme Court has reportedly decided to make its judgments available in regional languages on its official website by the end of this month.

The Hindustan Times reports that, to begin with, judgments will be translated into six vernacular languages: Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia and Telugu.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has also 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.