President hails SC's effort to provide judgements in 9 vernacular languages

President Ram Nath Kovind Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court's efforts to provide judgements 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 program 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 that 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. "In our quest, we must move from strength to strength.We cannot be affected by what affects others. We cannot be moved by what moves others. Fighting all odds and adversaries we have to continuously strive to take our Institution to the heights of glory that are parallel to none. History has witnessed how great institutions have been brought to the knees by the wicked and the vile.

"History has also seen how even great nations have been brought down in utterly deceptive manner. The threat from such people has always been the greatest to institutions like the judiciary which do not pander to any particular interest or bow to powerful coteries that breed in nooks and dark corners," Gogoi said. In his speech, Prasad also highlighted the role of the government in the appointments and providing of infrastructure to subordinate judiciary.

"We in the government have looked very carefully in the infrastructure part of it. We have got centrally sponsored schemes where we have spent Rs 7,000 crore in creating court halls and infrastructure in the subordinate judiciary. In the Rs 7,000 crore, 50 per cent have been spent by the government led by Narendra Modi in the last five years," he said. He said that the government's commitment to providing good infrastructure is in absolute toto because adequate infrastructure is a pre condition for access to justice.

Prasad said that the Union government has repealed repealed more than 1500 laws colonial law till date and a cabinet meeting was held Wednesday that decided to repeal 58 more laws. "We have already come up with a commercial court amendment by which three lakh litigation is subject to redressal in their commercial site but pre-institutional mechanism for mediation as mandatory mediation should also be incorporated unless you need some urgent relief in terms of injunction," he said.