Honble SHETHNA, J. – Notices were issued in both these petitions to the Chief Secretary of the State of Rajasthan and Ors. as both the learned Advocates, Mr. H.S. Balot and Mr. R.S. Gill, appearing for the respective petitioners in their matters, on earlier occasion insisted to address this Court only in Hindi. The petitions with Annexures are also in Hindi. Initially, to some extent, the feeling of the members of the Bar was also that all proceedings in this High Court should only be in Hindi, and they should be allowed to address the Court only in Hindi in view of the Notification issued by the Government of Rajasthan on February 14, 1950, whereby the Governor, with the previous consent of the President of India, permitted the use of Hindi language in proceedings in the High Court of Rajasthan, to the extent permissible under Article 348(2) of the Constitution.

(2). It was tried to be argued that after issuance of the Government Notification dated February 14,1950, the official language of this High Court is Hindi. In support of argument a reliance was placed upon the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in case of Narendra Kumar v. Rajasthan High Court (1). In that case the question was ``whether in view of Section 47 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949 (for short ``the Ordinance) all the proceedings in this Court including the judgments, orders and decrees should only be written in Hindi Devnagri Script, which has been declared as official language of the Court? When it was pointed out that the Division Bench of this Court as in para 2 of its judgment has specifically held that:–

``We, therefore, find no substance in the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner and other counsel who were allowed to intervene that in view of Section 47 of the Ordinance even after coming into force of Part XVII of the Constitution of India as aforesaid all proceedings including judgments, decrees and orders of the High Court have to be in Hindi written in Devnagari

Script.

Then the learned members of the Bar not pressed their aforesaid argument.

(3). Proviso to Section 47 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance provides that where a Judge hearing a case is not familiar with the Hindi language, the proceedings may be conducted by him in English.

(4). In view of the above, the learned members the Bar have agreed to address this Court in English. Therefore, no further order is required to be passed by this Court. However, a request was made from the members of the Bar that if any Advocate, who is not able to address the Court in English, then he may be allowed to take the assistance of any of his colleagues. This request can readily be granted without any hesitation. In fact, without proper assistance of the Advocates it is not possible for any Court to decide the matter correctly. It was also assured by the learned members of the Bar that henceforth, the petitions will be presented by them before this Court in English, which will help the Court to do speedy justice.

(5). A submission was made that the judgments of the lower Courts are in Hindi and the documents are also in Hindi and the poor litigants should not be made to suffer by asking them to supply the translation of the same, because of the transfer policy implemented by the Government. It was submitted that the proper directions should be issued to the State Government as it has been done by the Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in case of State of Gujarat vs. Patel Jayantibhai Chaturbhai (2).

(6). There is a lot of substance in this submission.

(7). The judgment of the Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court is a brief one and I would like to reproduce the entire judgment, which is as under :–

``Criminal Appellate

Before the Honble Mr. Justice K.J. Vaidya and the Honble Mr. Justice, N.N. Mathur, State of Gujarat vs. Patel Jayantibhai Chaturbhai and others, Criminal Appeal No. 1298 of 1993, decided on 6.5.1994, M.A. Bukhari, APP for the State.

VAIDYA, J. – When we w

Click Here to Read the rest of this document