HC publishes judgment in Malayalam, becomes first to publish judgment in regional language

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has scripted history by publishing a judgment in Malayalam yesterday on International Mother Language Day. Judgments will now also be available in Malayalam. As the first phase of this, the division bench headed by Chief Justice S Manikumar published two judgments in Malayalam. It is the first time in the country that a High Court has delivered judgments in the regional language.

These have been published on the official website of the High Court along with the judgments in English. The judgments in Malayalam were published in the case related to loan for purchase of vehicle and in the case related to a check dam in Koodaranji Panchayat, Kozhikode.

Making court orders and judgments available in the local language was one of the stated goals of Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud. The Kerala High Court's judgment is a step towards this.

The orders in English are translated into Malayalam with the help of SUVAS software. The technical committee of the High Court has decided to re-check the translated copy and ensure that there are no errors and publish it on the website. At present, the Kerala High Court is far ahead of other High Courts in the country in the computerization of court proceedings. The High Court also received a special award for excellence in the field of e-governance.

In need of more employees

At present, 80,000 to 1 lakh cases are disposed of in the High Court in a year. Apart from this, about 18 lakh old orders will also have to be translated into Malayalam. The IT department of the High Court considers that more staff should be appointed for these. For this, there is a need to study the exact number of required employees.