New Delhi: As many as 302 judgements have been translated into vernacular languages and uploaded on the Supreme Court website by the Registry that includes 15 judgements in Odia.
The SC Registry has been uploading judgements in vernacular languages in the apex court website in Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu and Bangla.
Significantly, as many as 153 vernacular judgements have been uploaded in the Hindi language, followed by 36 judgements in Tamil. The Registry has translated 10 judgements in Punjabi, 22 in Marathi, 18 in Malayalam and around 46 judgements have been uploaded in other languages like Bangla, Telugu, Kannada and Assamese etc till now. The Registry also translated one judgement in Urdu language.
The first such translation was in Bangla language which pertains to a civil appeal (Reshmi Dhanuk Dey vs The Branch Manager National Insurance Company). The apex court had passed the judgement in this August 1, 2018.
The court Registry had also translated a judgement in a criminal appeal (Kumar Ghimirey vs State of Sikkim) dated April 22, 2019 in Nepali language.
The idea of translating the apex court’s judgements into regional languages was mooted during a conference held in Kochi in 2017.
According to sources, President Ram Nath Kovind had highlighted the need to render judgements in regional languages for the convenience of non-English speaking people during the conference.
In order to make translation of judgments into vernacular languages convenient, former chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had, reportedly, cleared a software developed by the apex court’s ‘in-house’ electronic software wing in 2019.
The Registry officials had told the media that it was a long pending demand of the people belonging to various states, who do not speak English, to translate judgements in regional languages also.
The initiative was also taken to reduce the dependence of litigants on lawyers to understand the judgement.
The Registry has mainly translated judgements passed in civil and criminal cases.
Kuldeep Singh, OP