To make Tamil an official language of Madras HC, start translating legal terms instead of staging protests, judge tells lawyers

If lawyers are really interested in making Tamil an official language of the Madras High Court, they should start translating all English legal terms in simple Tamil instead of resorting to agitations such as sitting on fast unto death, Justice G. Jayachandran of the Madras High Court said on Monday. He asked them to start arguing in the language before judges like him who were conversant with it and were willing to allow such arguments in the vernacular language. The absence of a proper glossary as well as a English-Tamil legal dictionary and consequent translation of legal books in the vernacular language was serving as the major impediment

If lawyers are really interested in making Tamil an official language of the Madras High Court, they should start translating all English legal terms in simple Tamil instead of resorting to agitations such as sitting on fast unto death, Justice G. Jayachandran of the Madras High Court said on Monday.

When advocate G. Bhagavath Singh sought a direction to the Greater Chennai police to permit an indefinite fast, the judge said, the court could not endorse such life threatening agitations and asked an Additional Public Prosecutor to find out by Wednesday as to what other form of protest could be allowed.

Giving a piece of advice to all lawyers interested in making Tamil as one of the official languages in High Court proceedings, the judge asked them to start arguing in the language before judges like him who were conversant with it and were willing to allow such arguments in the vernacular language.

He added, the lawyers could start translating the judgments passed by the High Court in English into simple and understandable Tamil so that it paved way for creation of a glossary that could help everyone to appreciate the verdicts in words that were in vogue now and not the ones that had become archaic.

The judge said, though the Supreme Court had begun to translate its judgments in Tamil using a computer software, even that was not anywhere near to perfection. “For example, that sotware translates the term ‘learned advocate’ as ‘Arivarndha Vazhakarignar’. It is not the right translation,” he said.

Pointing out that the absence of a proper glossary as well as a English-Tamil legal dictionary and consequent translation of legal books in the vernacular language was serving as the major impediment for introduction of Tamil as an official language of the High Court, he asked lawyers to contribute towards such cause.

“If some lawyers begin finding the exact translation for the English legal terms, maxims and doctrines in simple and understandable Tamil and start using them to argue their cases, automatically the language would come to be accepted as one of the official languages of the court in the next few years,” he opined.