Kochi: On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, the Kerala High Court became the first High Court in the country to publish a judgement in a regional language.
The HC has published two of its recent judgments in Malayalam. Incidentally, the publishing of the translated judgements on test basis began on the International Mother Language Day, which is observed worldwide every year on February 21 to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.
The judgments passed by a division bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji. P, Chaly in January, were made available in Malayalam on the High Court's website, thus creating the record.
Ever since Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud took office in November 2022, there has been a collective push from the executive and the judiciary towards publication of judgments of High Courts and the Supreme Court in regional languages.
At around the same time, as these judgments were originally issued, the CJI had said that the process of releasing Supreme Court judgments in regional languages had begun.
Last month, in January 2023, the Chief Justice had said that the judgments of the apex court would be translated to four languages, namely, Hindi, Gujarati, Odia, and Tamil, on noting that the English language in its “legal avatar” was not comprehensible to 99.9% of Indian citizens.
The apex court had also proposed to release 1,268 of its judgments in 13 Indian languages on Republic Day this year. Of those, 1,091 judgments had been translated to Hindi, 21 to Odia, 14 to Marathi, 4 to Assamese, 1 to Garo, 17 to Kannada, 1 to Khasi, 29 to Malayalam, three to Nepali, 4 to Punjabi, 52 to Tamil, 28 to Telugu and 3 to Urdu.
The proposal for the same had initially been mooted by the former President Ram Nath Kovind, who stated that a a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgements would be made available in the local or regional language.
"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", the former Indian President had emphasized. He had further suggested that the certified translated copies of judgments could be made available within 24 or 36 hours after the pronouncement of the judgment.
The proposal had been mulled by the apex court in 2019, under the aegis of the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, and had decided to translate judgments to six vernacular languages, namely, Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu. The indigenously developed software by the electronic software wing of the Supreme Court had also been cleared by the then CJI Gogoi.
By July 2019, the apex court had started uploading judgments in regional languages, in a separate tab titled 'Vernacular Judgments' on the Supreme Court portal. The judgments of a case originating from a particular state was seen translated to the language of that state, and translated judgments in six vernacular languages were seen to be made available. By 2020, some more judgments in Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi, were also seen to be made available.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has been appreciative of the judiciary's focus on making judgments more accessible to citizens who may not be well versed in English.
"At a recent function, CJI Justice DY Chandrachud spoke of the need to work towards making SC judgments available in regional languages. He also suggested the use of technology for it. This is a laudatory thought, which will help many people, particularly youngsters," the PM tweeted on January 22.
(With IANS, LiveLaw inputs.)
