Source: The Hindu

Why in News?

• In 2023, the Supreme Court of India undertook a groundbreaking initiative to translate its extensive collection of 36,000 judgments into Scheduled Languages.
• This ambitious project saw remarkable progress, propelled by the collaboration of retired High Court judges and law clerks alongside artificial intelligence.
• However, lingering concerns revolve around the utilisation of these translated judgments and the absence of a standardised legal vocabulary across all regional languages.

What is the Background of News?

• To encourage regional languages in legal processes, the Supreme Court developed the Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS), an AI-powered translation tool.
  • SUVAS can translate judicial documents between English and regional languages.
• The E-SCR portal commenced in 2023 with a modest 2,238 translated judgments in January but concluded with a substantial achievement of over 31,000 rulings translated by the end of the year.

What is the Current Scenario?

• As per the recent statistics the highest number of translated judgments are in Hindi at 22,396, followed by Punjabi (3,572), Kannada (1,899), Tamil (1,172), and Gujarati (1,112).
• In 2023, though translation speed improved significantly, concerns arose among legal experts about the utility of translated judgments when High Courts cannot conduct proceedings in regional languages, except in Hindi-speaking States.
• Translated rulings carry a disclaimer relieving the Supreme Court Registry of responsibility for inaccuracies.
• Beyond Hindi, the absence of a standardized legal glossary in regional languages results in inconsistent translations, particularly in Tamil, as noted by retired Justice K. Chandru.
• The Bar Council of India, led by former CJI Justice Bobde, is working on a "Common Core Vocabulary" for all Indian languages.
• The SC initiated a systematic approach, categorizing judgments by year and page count, with focus on common orders to enhance translation software training.

What is Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS)?

• About:
  • The then CJI S.A. Bobde launched SUVAS in November 2019.
  • SC has developed SUVAS to promote and ensure the participation of regional language in judicial proceedings.
  • It is a machine assisted translation tool trained by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Position under Constitution:
  • Article 348(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution says that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and every High Court should be in English.
  • But Article 348(2) allows a State Governor, with the President's consent, to permit the use of Hindi or another state language in the High Court of that State.
  • Hence, SUVAS conferred power under Article 348 of the Constitution.

What are the Scheduled Languages?

The Eight Schedule of Constitution provides 22 official languages. These languages are recognized for the purpose of communication in various levels of government and for the conduct of official business. Eight Schedule includes following languages:

• Assamese
• Bengali
• Bodo
• Dogri
• Gujarati
• Hindi
• Kannada
• Kashmiri
• Konkani
• Maithili
• Malayalam
• Manipuri
• Marathi
• Nepali
• Odia
• Punjabi
• Sanskrit
• Santali
• Sindhi
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Urdu