Supreme Court issues notice in PIL for use of Hindi in Supreme Court, High Courts

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to replace English with Hindi as the language used in the Supreme Court and High Courts. A Division Bench comprising Justice HL Dattu and Justice SA Bobde issued notice to the Central government today..The petition has been filed by Advocate Shiv Sagar Tiwari. He has contended that Article 348 of the Constitution, which prescribes English as the language to be used in the Supreme Court and High Courts, is violative of Articles 1, 14, 19, 343 and 349 of the Constitution..The petition states that,.“Though Article 343 talks about the National Language to be Hindi but unfortunately Chapter III dealing with the Supreme Court and High Courts in Article 348 clearly says that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every High Court shall be in English language which is a Gulami Bhasha and is totally contrary to the provisions of Article 343 of the Constitution.”.Alleging that the judgments delivered by the Supreme Court “in foreign language (slavery language) are not understood by the litigants”, the petitioner has contended that the provision contained in Article 343 to restrict the use of English language up to fifteen years after independence has not been followed. Tiwari has further contended that the Parliament was bound to move an amendment to change the language of the Supreme Court and High Courts after fifteen years of the commencement of the Constitution. Failure to do this, he has submitted, is a violation of the freedom of speech under Article 19 of the Constitution and also a violation of Articles 343 and 349 of the Constitution..On the above grounds, he has prayed for amending Article 348 by replacing the words “shall be in English language” with “shall be in Hindi in Devnagari script”..When the matter came up for hearing today, Justice Dattu asked Tiwari whether he wanted the use of Hindi in the court. Tiwari replied that he was praying for Hindi or any other appropriate vernacular language. The court then proceeded to issue notice..Tiwari had earlier filed a petition assailing the practice of lawyers addressing judges as ‘ your lordship’. The matter was heard by this very Bench which had dismissed it with the observation that there was no compulsion to use ‘ your lordship’ and the lawyers were free to address the court in any, respectful manner.