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Guest (Guest)     10 July 2009

Use of Hindi in Courts

 Article 348(1) of the Constitution of India provides that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every High Court shall be in English language until Parliament by law otherwise provides. Under Article 348(2) the Governor of the State may, with the previous consent of the President, authorize the use of the Hindi language or any other language used for any official purpose of the State, in the proceedings of the High Court having its principal seat in that State provided that decrees, judgements or orders passed by such High Courts shall in English. 



Uner Section 7 of the Official language Act, 1963, the use of Hindi or official language of a State in addition to the English language may be authorized, with the consent of the President of India, by the Governor of the State for the purpose of judgement etc. made by the High Court for that State. The matter regarding promotion of use of Hindi in hearing or court cases rests with the respective State Government in consultation with the High Court of the State. 



So far the Governors of four States namely: Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have authorised the use of Hindi in addition to English language in the proceedings as well as the judgements, decrees etc of the High Courts in their States. Data regarding percentage of use of Hindi and English in the High Courts of these States is not maintained. 



This information was given by Dr. M.Veerappa Moily, Minister of Law and Justice, in the Lok Sabha today in a written reply. 



 1 Replies

Kiran Kumar (Lawyer)     10 July 2009

unfortunately in Inida, Hindi did not get the respect it deserved in the post independence period, officially its our national language but still not accepted by many states.  In southern states, English is preffered over Hindi.

 

buy any Chinese product, u ll find all the ingredients and price and all other necessary things will be written in Chinese language not in English.

 

whereas in India u ll find very few products with details written in Hindi.

 

still in various states one can find people unable to speak Hindi......if this is allowed that the official language of a High Court should be Hindi then our worthy regional politicians would demand the use of the state language first.

 

every body knows what happened in Maharashtra and how English is preferred over Hindi in Tamil Nadu.....not because of People of respective states but just because of our politicians.

 

the laws are written in Englsih (rather the core one are creation of English people), law is being taught in English at a wide scale....so it ll be big job to change the official language of courts without disturbing the administration of justice and without annoying the regional politicians.


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