Chennai: An initiative by the Supreme Court to publish judgments in five regional languages along with English on its official website, echoed in the Assembly on Thursday with the opposition DMK demanding a TN Assembly resolution urging the SC to include Tamil too among the regional languages. However, Law Minister C. Ve. Shanmugam said it was too early for such a move and assured that the State government will take steps to have Tamil included in the list.
Raising the issue in the Assembly House, DMK president M. K. Stalin while welcoming the SC’s decision to provide translated version of the judgment in five regional languages said it was disappointing that Tamil was not included. Steps should be taken to provide Tamil translation of the court verdict. “The State Assembly should unanimously pass a resolution urging the Supreme Court to provide judgment copies in Tamil too,” Stalin said. Responding Mr. Shanmugam said it was too early to pass the Assembly resolution and moreover it would amount to exerting pressure on the court.
“Let’s wait and watch because passing a resolution may appear to mount pressure on the judiciary which has come forward to provide judgment copies in regional languages,” Mr. Shanmugam said. He said media reports stated that judgment of the Supreme Court of India would soon be made available in six Indian languages. As per news reports, Hindi, Telugu, Assamese, Kannada, Marathi and Odia translations of Supreme Court judgments are set to be introduced on the Court’s website by the end of the month.
The Supreme Court may include other languages in order to make judgments multi-lingual, he said and assured that the State government would take steps to have Tamil included. “It is not said that the judgments will not be available in other languages…six languages were included in the first phase,” the Minister said and added that these languages were chosen after taking into account the high number of cases filed from States where those languages were spoken.
Stalin recalled an Assembly resolution in 2006 during the DMK rule urging to make Tamil the language of Madras High Court, and said as there was consensus among the political parties on the issue, the government should take steps to ensure Tamil the official language of courts.
Maintaining that there could be no second opinion on the subject, Mr. Shanmugam assured the State government would soon take steps in this direction.
