Rijiju said that PM Modi has highlighted the need to encourage local languages in courts. (File)
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday said that the government is making efforts to collect legal glossaries published in regional languages, digitise them and make them available to the public in a searchable format.
Addressing the Constitution Day celebrations at the Supreme Court today, the Law Minister said language is becoming a barrier in accessing legal justice as legal terminology is not available in regional languages.
"In a vast country like India where 65 per cent of the total population still lives in rural areas and where the regional and local language is the medium of understanding, language becomes one of the perceived barriers in ensuring universal access to justice of the country when legal material and legal terminology are not available in local language understandable by the common man," said Rijiju.
He said that on multiple occasions Prime Minister Narendra Modi has highlighted the need to encourage local languages in courts to increase the confidence of the common man in the judicial system and to make them feel connected too.
"In this context, I am happy to inform that under the aegis of Law Ministry, the Bar Council of India has constituted Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, chaired by former Chief Justice of India SA Bobde," the Union Law Minister said.
He said that the committee is listing out words and phrases which are most commonly frequently used in various branches of law.
"The committee, as a first step, is listing out words and phrases which are most commonly frequently used in various branches of law for developing a common core vocabulary close to all Indian languages for translating legal material into regional languages," said Rijiju.
"Legislative Department has prepared a glossary of 65,000 legal terms. We plan to digitise and make it available to the public in a searchable format. Efforts will be made to collect legal glossaries published in regional languages, digitise and make it available to the public in the searchable format," said Rijiju.
During a Constitution Day event, the Prime Minister also launched various new initiatives under the e-court project. The Project is an effort to provide services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary through ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) enablement of courts.
The initiatives launched by the Prime Minister today include Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS mobile App 2.0, Digital court and S3WaaS Websites.
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