Rule 148 of the J&K High Court Rules does not entitle a party to receive translated copies of judicial records that are in the official language of the State, which is Urdu.

1. Encouraged by the wording of rule 148 of the J&K High Court Rules of 1975, the petitioner has filed this petition seeking to quash the order of the Deputy Registrar of this court and praying for direction for supply of translated copies of judicial record and for directing the deputy Registrar not to list petitions of 1980 and 1982 till the petitioner is supplied English translation of Urdu documents from the judicial record.

2. It appears that civil revision petitions nos. 89/80/80/82 and 139/86 titled Inderjeet Gupta Vs. Bakshi Vishwamiter/Subash Dutt are pending disposal in this court. The petitioner seems to have made an application for supply of English translation of Urdu documents which are said to be part of judicial record of the original file of the trial court out of which the three revision petitions have arisen. The urdu documents, translation whereof is sought on payment of fee, are detailed out in the application and stamp duty is also paid to the deputy Registrar. The Deputy Registrar of this court on perusal of office reported has noted as under on the said application:

"It appears that at present there is no translating facility available in the copying branch of the office. Hence the request of the applicant cannot be acceded to at the moment. Inform him accordingly. Return the stamps. The application is filed."

3. Petitioner submits that his counsel, Shri G.D. Sharma Advocate was not well versant with the Urdu in persian scipt, therefore he wanted the translated copies of Urdu documents for his lawyer which he was entitled to get under the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Rules on payment of fee within a specified period. Due to non-availability of the copies the counsel could not argue the revision petition before this court and a single bench of this court did not grant him adjournment to enable him to get english translation of Urdu documents, for which he had made an application. However the single Judge had permitted the petitioner to take extracts from the file of the trial court and had directed the Deputy Registrar to allow inspection of the file by the petitioner under his supervision. The file was to be made available to the petitioner in person because his counsel was not well versant with the Urdu script. The petitioner has given details as to how adjournments were refused to him by the Single Judge and he was accused of adopting delaying action. It is stated that the petitioner has a fundamental right and certain freedoms are guaranteed to him which would include fair treatment at the hearing. On basis of Rule 148 he claims that he is entitled to receive the translated copies of Urdu documents, without which his lawyer will not be able to argue the case. Registrys refusal to issue translated copies is said to be bad and violative of the rules. Rule 148 of the J&K High Court Rules reads as under:

Any person entitled to obtain a copy of a Judicial Record may apply for a translation thereof and he will be arranged for the translation furnished to him on fee equal to doube the fee chargeable for a copy thereof."

4. Rule 162 of the said Rules provides, that in ordinary circumstances a copy shall be furnished not later than 3 P.M. on the fifth day after the fees required under rules have been deposited.

5. It is argued by Mr. Jalali appearing for Mr. GD Sharma, that non-availability of translation facilities in the Registry could not be made a ground for not supplying the English translation of Urdu documents to him for which he had made an application in accordance with the rules and had paid the prescribed fee also. This, in the opinion of the learned counsel, has denied his fairness and his right to have the services of a lawyer is taken away, which is violative of his fundamental rights. His lawyer is said to have no proficiency in Urdu scripts, therefore he wants English translation of the documents.

6. On the face of Rule 148, the argument advanced by the learned counsel for the petitioner a