New Delhi, July 13:Noting that Punjabi is a “major language” among the 22 official languages, former Union Minister and former chief election commissioner MS Gill on Saturday demanded that in the next two months efforts should be made to get court judgments translated into Punjabi too.
Taking a note of the reports about President Ram Nath Kovind releasing the translated copies of 100 Supreme Court judgments in seven Indian languages on July 17, which do not include Punjabi, Gill said the number of people who spoke the language “is no less than those who speak Hindi if we take into account both sides of Punjab”.
Gill said the President, a lawyer himself, had been insisting and encouraging the Supreme Court and chief justices of high courts to publish judgments in local languages also to help the poor in not only understanding them but also insulating themselves from being cheated.
He said it is also in public knowledge that the President had been telling them that on a number of occasions litigants are required to pay double the fees to lawyers to get the judgments in their own languages.
“Now when the Supreme Court is translating judgments in Indian languages, when the Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh High Courts are translating their judgments in their respective languages, I appeal to the Punjab and Haryana High Court to publish judgments in Punjabi in cases relating to Punjab and in Hindi in cases pertaining to Haryana,” Gill said.
In the translated version of 100 Supreme Court judgments, which will be released, the languages include Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya and Telugu.
These will be released at a function here on July 17 when Kovind will come to inaugurate the new Supreme Court building at a place where Appu Ghar once stood.
This is going to be the first instance when the translated copies of judgments would be made available by the Supreme Court.
