The Supreme Court has started uploading the translated version of its judgments in more regional languages.
Some judgments delivered by the Court last year and earlier this year are now seen available in Malayalam, Tamil and Punjabi. Mostly the judgments connected to a state is being translated and uploaded in the language of that state.
Last year, the Supreme Court had started to make its judgments available in regional languages. A separate tab titled ‘Vernacular Judgments’ was added to the home page of the Supreme Court Portal. Initially, the translation was made to six vernacular languages: Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia and Telugu.
On finding that the translation is not being made to Malayalam, the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had then written to the then Chief Justice of India and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad requesting that all Supreme Court judgments should be made available in Malayalam also. Anyhow, the Supreme Court is seen to have positively considered this request and is making available the Malayalam version of the judgments in cases related to Kerala.
The translation is being done using an indigenously developed software by the electronic software wing of the Supreme Court.
However all these regional language versions have a ‘disclaimer’ attached to it it at the end. It states that for all official and practical purposes, the judgments published in English shall be used. It further clarifies that the translated version in regional languages are only for the better understanding of the litigants.
