Supreme Court to make its judgments available in regional languages

inbatv Uncategorized

Supreme court has started an initiative towards a better understanding of its judgments into seven different vernacular languages that is Telugu, Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi,  Odia, and Bengali. This decision was taken into consideration after the speech made by the President Ram Nath Kovind at the valedictory of the diamond jubilee celebration of the Kerala High Court in 2017. In this ceremony, the president suggested for the availability of Judgements in regional languages for the benefit of the non-English speaking population. What he exactly said is quoted –

“There is a need to enhance legal literacy and simplify legal rules.  It is important to not only take justice to thepeople but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a language they know. Perhaps  a  system  could  be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgments are made  available  by  the  High  Courts  in  the  local  or  regional language.”[1]

This decision was also necessary because India is a country of diversity where thousands of languages are spoken and people here are comfortable in learning and knowing things in their regional languages.

So, why did the Supreme Court decided to make judgments available in these seven languages only? Well answer to this question is simple that these all languages are spoken by a large majority of people. According to the census of 2011[2] –

  1. Hindi speaking population = 52, 83, 47, 193.
  2. Assamese speaking population = 1, 53, 11, 351.
  3. Kannada speaking population = 4, 37, 06, 512.
  4. Marathi speaking population = 8, 30, 26, 680.
  5. Odia speaking population = 3, 75, 21, 324.
  6. Telugu speaking population = 8, 11, 27, 740.
  7. Bengali speaking population = 9, 72, 37, 669.

Despite these figures, there is a legit reason for selecting these seven languages at the initial stage of this initiative. All these seven languages states are proud to converse in their regional languages only. Seeing such a demand of availability of translations and verdicts by the high courts and people of these 7 languages speaking states, Supreme Court initiated with them.

Priority in translation will be given to orders relating to individual litigants such as civil disputes, criminal matters, landlord-tenant disputes, matrimonial issues, etc. However, these translated verdicts will be posted on the website after a week later. 

Affecting the decision, the website of the apex court that is the supreme court of India has started providing judgments in these languages. One can see the Judgements in regional languages by selecting the tab of vernacular languages[3] present on the website of Supreme Court. The move is a much-appreciated work done as it is seen to be a reformative step towards the understanding of Judgments and awareness regarding these judgments among the vast population of the country in their language. We hope to see adding up more region-based languages for more impact on this process of reformative Indian Judiciary.



[1] Point 8 of the speech, https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-362168.pdf.

[2] http://censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language-2011/Statement-1.pdf

[3]https://sci.gov.in/vernacular_judgment



Submitted by –

Bibhanshu Mishra

Student Reporter, INBA