President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court’s efforts to provide judgments in nine vernacular languages to litigants who are not conversant in English saying the issue was “very close to his heart”.
He also congratulated the apex court collegium and the Centre for working together to ensure that the top court is now working at its full strength of 31 “able judges”.
“I appreciate the Supreme Court’s open mindedness in developing and deploying software that translates judgment texts into different languages. I am certain that with time and experience, the software programme will only improve and incorporate many more languages. “Our aim should be to ensure that the maximum number of judgements of the Supreme Court and the high courts should be available in major Indian languages. Ideally this should include judgments on crucial constitutional matters,” Kovind said after inaugurating an additional building of the Supreme Court.
He noted that priority has been given to judgements related to labour laws, consumer protection, family and personal laws, land acquisition and rental disputes, and similar areas — because these concern common people.
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi highlighted the role of the apex court in nation building, safeguarding and promoting Constitutional values. “This institution has stood like a sediment of constitutional ethos and there have been several occasions where threats to the constitutional fabric have been warded off by the Supreme Court of India.
“It would suffice to say that the commitment of this institution that the call for justice can and does have no compromise. Supreme Court of India has responded in a manner appropriate and shall continue to do so, round the clock-all over the year,” Gogoi said.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad advocated an all India judicial service for recruiting judges in subordinate courts and said that the meritorious and backward classes should get their due share in judiciary. “Perhaps today the time has come to seriously reflect upon the need for an all India judicial service having the best place, national law schools, good lawyers, giving due regard to deprived community in a robust manner and the recruitment, I am very clear, must be done at national level,” he said.
In his inaugural address, Kovind said he was “happy to receive and be introduced to translations of 100 important judgments of the Supreme Court. “These will now be available in a variety of regional and Indian languages, and accessible to hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens who may not know English,” he added.
“Digital technologies and artificial intelligence often pose tricky questions and challenges for our courts by deploying them for translation, our judiciary is converting such challenges into opportunities,” he said. According to Kovind, all 31 vacancies in the Supreme Court have been “filled by able judges and this has happened after a full decade, and for this achievement I must congratulate the Collegium and the Government for working together with such understanding and urgency”.
He said efficiency and responsiveness of the judicial system are dependent on both quality and quantity. The CJI said there is a dire need for introspection among the stakeholders as to where and how they would like to see this institution in the decades ahead.
He said the top court and all its constituents would require to revamp existing methodologies and revisit conventional wisdom and traditions in good time so that the institution is geared up and ready to meet new kind of challenges that seem to be emerging.