Another Milestone- CJI DY Chandrachud Launches "Neutral Citations" For All Supreme Court Judgements

On Thursday, CJI DY Chandrachud announced that all Supreme Court judgements will be having "neutral citations". Announcing it as a new initiative, CJI DY Chandrachud said–

"Our recent initiative is neutral citations for all judgements of the Supreme Court. So all 30,000 judgements are going to have neutral citation. First tranch will be till January 1, 2023, then the other tranch will be till judgements from 2014 and then finally we will go back to 1950. So all judgements will now have neutral citations."

CJI DY Chandrachud also expressed his aspiration that High Courts also follow neutral citations for their judgements. At present, the High Court of Delhi, Kerala, and Madras have introduced neutral citation for their judgments.

The Chief Justice also discussed other initiatives such as the eSCR and translation of judgements in local languages. He said–

"We are also translating all judgments in all languages. And we're using machine learning tools and that is being verified by team of district judges. 2900 supreme court judgments are translated so far. Sometimes translations can be difficult. Because for example if we say "leave granted", it may literally translate to "avakash prapt ho gaya" so there is a team of district judges and law researchers assisting. Supreme Court will be funding it all."

In 2022, CJI DY Chandrachud, who is the chairperson of Supreme Court's eCommittee, had constituted a panel of three high court judges to prepare a framework for formulating neutral citations for citing decisions of the high courts as well as the apex court. Justice Rajiv Shakdher of Delhi High Court, Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V of the Kerala High Court and Justice Suraj Govind Raj of Karnataka High Court were announced to be members of the committee, and had been asked to suggest modalities and submit a report to the eCommittee. Ramesh Babu, who is Member (Project Management), eCommittee, Supreme Court was announced to be the convenor of the committee.

The Neutral Citations are to ensure a uniform pattern of citing all decisions of the High Court and the Supreme Court. Delhi High Court and Kerala High Court have recently introduced their own neutral citations.

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