Making the Language of the Law Comprehensible

Context: The recent litigation over the language in which the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Noti?cation 2020 should be published has brought attention to the issue of o?cial languages used by the Central Government.

Issue involved: The trigger for this debate has been litigation by citizens, who protested against the publication of the draft EIA noti?cation in only English and Hindi, on the grounds that such a policy excludes a large number of Indians who do not speak Hindi or English from participating in the public consultation process. 

Language Politics in India:

• Reorganization of States: The reorganization of Indian States on linguistic lines in 1956 took place because of the agitations that followed the death of Potti Sreeramulu in 1952.

• Rise of regional political parties: The rise and success of several regional political parties such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Telugu Desam Party and the Shiv Sena have been associated with linguistic pride, 

 Arguments given by the Centre for the No need of translation:

• Not Required by law: The O?cial Languages Act, 1963 requires the publication of the law in only English and Hindi. 

• As a result, the central government, de facto, ends up excluding non-English and non-Hindi speaking citizens from the law making process only because of their linguistic identity. 

• Fear of meaning of words being obfuscated and mean otherwise. 

Arguments favouring the translation:

• Centre’s legal responsibility to recognize translation: 

• The Authoritative Texts (Central Laws) Act, 1973 creates a legal mechanism to recognize authoritative translations of all central laws into languages mentioned in the Schedule VIII to the Constitution of India. 

• Judicial View: The Supreme Court of India in the past (Harla v. State of Rajasthan, 1951) has ruled that citizens are not bound by laws which have not been published and publicized. 

• “Natural justice requires that before a law can be­ come operative, it must be promulgated or published.”

• The European Union (EU) Example:  The O?cial Languages Act, 1963 requires the publication of the law in only English and Hindi. 

• All EU-level o?cial documents are made available in all 24 o?cial languages of member States 
• The EU has a policy in place to respect the linguistic diversity of its member nations. 

Way Forward:

• An inclusive Language Policy: must be integral to the law­making and enforcement process. This should include:

• Mandatorily publishing all parliamentary debates and associated records such as 

• Reports of parliamentary committees, 
• The entire record of the Gazette of India, 
• All legislation and delegated legislation of the central government in all 22 languages that are incorporated in the Schedule VIII.
• Only the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which runs the Aadhaar digital identity programme has an inclusive language policy allowing citizens to get identity cards in languages other than English and Hindi.