The Opposition parties ~ Congress and CPI-M ~ have jointly written to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Calcutta High Court and the Chief Minister’s Office today requesting inclusion of Bengali in the list of regional languages in which court judgments would be made available.
Recently the Supreme Court had stated that the court’s judgments will be available in seven regional languages, including Tamil, but had excluded Bengali. In the letter, Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan and Left Front leader Sujon Chakraborty stated that Bengali has an ancient heritage and is a rich language.
“Our national song is in Bengali and it has an international recognition. It is sad that Bengali has not been included in this list of regional languages,” said Mr Manan. MoS parliamentary affairs Tapas Ray applauded the move of the Opposition parties.
In November last year, Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, had said he wants people to be able to read the top court’s verdicts in their mother tongue. He had said this to journalists soon after assuming office.
The Supreme Court’s verdicts will be made available on its website in Hindi, Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, Kannada, Odia and Tamil. The translations are likely to be available by the end of this month.