‘Language of court is English’, SC tells Hindi-speaking litigant

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday told a litigant, who started arguing his case in Hindi as he did not speak or understand English, that the “language of this court is English”.

The court provided petitioner Shankar Lal Sharma with a legal-aid counsel after finding that he was not able to understand what the court was saying. “We have read the case file... we are not able to understand what you are saying,” judge KM Joseph told Sharma after listening to his argument. “The language of this court is English. If you wish, we can provide you a lawyer who will argue your case,” the judge said.

After Sharma accepted the court’s proposal to have a legal-aid lawyer, the bench asked another lawyer whether he can assist the petitioner. After he agreed, the bench told the lawyer: “Hope, you are doing it pro bono.” ”Yes, I will be doing it pro bono,” the lawyer responded.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on December 4.

The other petitioners cited the response of the Centre to urge the court to keep the matter pending.

“Do not make us say why these petitions are being filed,” the bench observed. When the petitioners requested permission to move representation in this regard before the government, the court said, “We do not want this matter to be back before us.”

India is a signatory to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, 1994, which is strictly against coercion in family planning.

As per the report of the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), India’s total fertility rate (TFR), which measures the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime, has declined from 2.2 in 2015-16 to 2.0 in 2019-20. A TFR value below 2.1 (which is known as the replacement level) means that a country’s population will not grow in the long-term.