12/04/2022
Use of the English language before the High Court and Supreme Court:
An example of the difficulty in not using English came up before the Supreme Court in Madhu Limaye vs. Ved Murti[1]. One of the intervening parties insisted on arguing in person before the Supreme Court, and that too in Hindi, which was objected to by opposing counsel as they could not understand him. The gentleman refused to argue in English, refused to submit written arguments in English, and even refused to let his counsel argue before the Court. Faced with such a situation, the Supreme Court cited Article 348, held that the language of the court was English, and cancelled his intervention.
Recently, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has introduced the vernacular languages in which the order and judgments are available in Supreme Court are Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Malayalam and Bengali from 2020.
While the translated judgments will be uploaded on the Supreme Court’s official website, daily orders of court proceedings will be provided to litigants and lawyers who request for it..