The Bombay High Court has urged the Maharashtra government to accelerate the mechanism for translation of statutes to Marathi..A Bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice GS Kulkarni has batted for translation of statutes to Marathi in a public interest litigation filed by one Shantaram Shankar Datar..Datar, who is the founder President of ‘Marathi Bhasha Saurakshan and Vikas Sanstha’ had come across several deficits in the translation of legal material including statutes into Marathi language..He had, therefore approached the High Court contending that since the language of the State is Marathi, there is a need for translation of Central statutes into Marathi. He had also pointed out that all civil and criminal courts are using Marathi as its language from 1998..Datar, had therefore prayed for a direction to be issued to the State government to create a fool proof machinery to translate all Central and State statutes along with their amendments to Marathi..The Court in its order, noted the response filed by the State government which had stated that 580 State statutes are in Marathi and 349 Central acts are being translated into Marathi out of which 166 have already been published as “Authoritative Text”..The Court clearly stated that the above translations will not suffice the need of the day and the Translation Bureau will have to be equipped with better infrastructure to meet the requirements..“As on today, the Directorate of Languages seems to have only two translators working under them. There is a request for 33 additional translators which is kept in cold storage. With the above infrastructure it would not be humanly possible for translating the State Acts, leave apart Central Acts.”.The Court, therefore said that it is only proper that the 33 posts are filled up while also cautioning that only experts in the field should be recruited lest wrong translations are made which would cause more difficulties..The Court noted that even though many people in Maharashtra and Mumbai are from outside the State, they have made the State their home for last many years and have made Marathi their mother tongue..“In that view of the matter, for everyone who requires understanding of such Central Acts or documents, the need of the hour requires acceleration in the mechanism already in existence”.The Court, therefore, urged the Maharashtra government to take steps expeditiously to implement the same..Read the order below..Image taken from here.
The Bombay High Court has urged the Maharashtra government to accelerate the mechanism for translation of statutes to Marathi..A Bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice GS Kulkarni has batted for translation of statutes to Marathi in a public interest litigation filed by one Shantaram Shankar Datar..Datar, who is the founder President of ‘Marathi Bhasha Saurakshan and Vikas Sanstha’ had come across several deficits in the translation of legal material including statutes into Marathi language..He had, therefore approached the High Court contending that since the language of the State is Marathi, there is a need for translation of Central statutes into Marathi. He had also pointed out that all civil and criminal courts are using Marathi as its language from 1998..Datar, had therefore prayed for a direction to be issued to the State government to create a fool proof machinery to translate all Central and State statutes along with their amendments to Marathi..The Court in its order, noted the response filed by the State government which had stated that 580 State statutes are in Marathi and 349 Central acts are being translated into Marathi out of which 166 have already been published as “Authoritative Text”..The Court clearly stated that the above translations will not suffice the need of the day and the Translation Bureau will have to be equipped with better infrastructure to meet the requirements..“As on today, the Directorate of Languages seems to have only two translators working under them. There is a request for 33 additional translators which is kept in cold storage. With the above infrastructure it would not be humanly possible for translating the State Acts, leave apart Central Acts.”.The Court, therefore said that it is only proper that the 33 posts are filled up while also cautioning that only experts in the field should be recruited lest wrong translations are made which would cause more difficulties..The Court noted that even though many people in Maharashtra and Mumbai are from outside the State, they have made the State their home for last many years and have made Marathi their mother tongue..“In that view of the matter, for everyone who requires understanding of such Central Acts or documents, the need of the hour requires acceleration in the mechanism already in existence”.The Court, therefore, urged the Maharashtra government to take steps expeditiously to implement the same..Read the order below..Image taken from here.
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