TN leaders demand Tamil translations of Supreme Court orders

Chennai: Even as news spread that Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has approved an indigenous software for enabling translations of Supreme Court judgments in six Indian languages, several political leaders in Tamil Nadu expressed anguish that Tamil was left out. They urged for the inclusion of Tamil for providing translations of the SC verdicts in English.

It was reported that the translations in the six languages—Hindi, Assamese, Kannada, Marathi, Odia and Telugu—would begin later this month. While the English judgments would be uploaded on the SC site the same day of judgment, their translations would take about a week for uploading. The six Indian languages for translation were chosen on the basis of the number of requests that came from various states to the Supreme Court and there could be second phase of expansion to include other languages, it was stated.

Welcoming the SC decision to translate its judgments into six Indian languages, DMK president M. K. Stalin on Wednesday said while he was very happy reading that the CJI Gogoi has cleared the proposal for translating the judgments of the Apex Court, it was hugely disappointing that Tamil did not find place in the list.

Tamil is one of the official languages in the country and it would greatly help the people of Tamil Nadu if the judgments are translated in their language too, Stalin said, while urging for inclusion of Tamil languages in the SC list of translations. Also, the omission of Tamil, which is the oldest language in the India, could lead to various suspicions in the minds of Tamils across the world, cautioned Stalin, who is also Leader of the Opposition in Tamil Nadu. Taking to social media, Stalin tweeted to convey disappointment at Tamil not being included for translations of SC verdicts and his request to CJI to “include Tamil and pave way for multilingual equality.”

VCK general secretary and Villupuram MP, D Ravikumar has written to Union Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad urging for Tamil’s inclusion in the list. “It is learnt that on the suggestion of Honourable President of India, the Supreme Court is going to publish its judgments in regional languages too. I wholeheartedly welcome this decision. Five regional languages- Hindi, Assamese, Odia, Telugu and Kannada- were already selected for this purpose. I humbly request you to take steps to include Tamil in the above list of regional languages.” he told Minister Prasad.

The whole idea for the translations came from President Ram Nath Kovind, who mooted the idea while speaking at the valedictory of the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Kerala High Court in October 2017. He said the High Courts could enable the litigant, particularly the rural illiterate, to understand their judgments by providing their translations in regional language. That would reduce the litigants’ dependence on their lawyer or someone else to provide translation and that could add to time and cost, he had said.

“High Courts deliver judgments in English, but we are a country of diverse languages. The litigant may not be conversant with English and the finer points of the judgment may escape him or her”, said the President, adding, “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 judgment is pronounced. The language could be Malayalam in Kerala High Court or Hindi in Patna High Court, as the case may be.”