8 ISSUES AND INSIGHTS MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY 24 JULY 2019 > > use of simple words like “shall” and Judges have to iron out clumsy clauses CHINESE WHISPERS “may”. After long and intricate discus- in law. On four provisions in the Excise The Tower of legal Babel sions, shall in a statute is sometimes Act, the court wrote, “subjected to “read down” as may and on other occa- amendments from time to time, they Swaraj on political violence sions, may is “read up” to mean shall. have now become so complicated that The project to translate judgments to national languages will face Law journals have a separate section on in order to discern their meaning, it many snags the latest interpretation given by courts becomes necessary to read them back to ordinary phrases. and forth several times”. In a similar recent contact with western jurispru- ic words and syntax. Recently, Chief Judgments are only part of the prob- situation, a British judge remarked that dence translations could face Justice Ranjan Gogoi is reported to lem. Legal draftsmen have often con- he tried holding the lines upside down formidable hurdles. have conceived a project to provide founded judges with woolly phrases. too, with no result. If judges say so, what The judiciary has launched an ambi- short summaries of important judg- Some jurists think that half the litiga- would a lesser translator do? The legal tious programme to make available judg- ments, but it has not taken off. tion in the writ courts is the conse- profession treats words of statutes and ments of the Supreme Court and high The judiciary is not digitally savvy, quence of bad draftsmanship. When judgments like religious texts. With sev- courts in local languages. Important though it claimed recently that it is judgments are written, those provisions eral translations, they would argue over judgments run into hundreds of pages going paperless. In fact, it has just taken running into several pages are cited ful- comparative translations till their jaws like the celebrated Kesavananda Bharati, over 12 acres of the former Appu Ghar ly. This would make the task of the ache and pockets runneth over. Former external affairs minister Sushma judges’ appointments cases, and recent- nearby to store its papers. It is not yet translators doubly difficult. Last week, It is well to remember the old adage Swaraj (pictured) has retired from active OUT OF COURT ly, the right to privacy judgment. They equipped to use computers for transla- a Jharkhand liquor law provision in that hell is paved with good intentions. politics. Her well-wishers and are no easy read, with footnotes and ref- tion. Even if AI is used, robots would Hindi had to be translated twice into The translation move may be politically supporters expected the government to M J ANTONY erences at the bottom of the page. The be foxed by judges’ language. There is English to satisfy SC judges regarding correct, but the immediate need is to make her governor of a state. While hangover of the Anglo-Saxon tradition an apocryphal story in which CIA its accuracy. The sections were named provide ordinary people a simple sum- Swaraj is yet to be sent to a Raj Bhavan, leads to a sprinkling of Latin and French engaged computers to translate in hybrid language, like “Rule mary of judgments, as Gogoi planned. she has decided to highlight the issue of t is said about literary works that phrases, apart from US and Russian. When it came to the biblical 106(Tha)”. The problem would be com- In the 1,000-page Kesavananda judg- “political violence in Bengal”. On translations are the other side of Commonwealth case law. sentence, “spirit is willing; but flesh is pounded if all these have to be trans- ment, the judges themselves felt the Thursday, Swaraj will be the chief guest I the carpet. They lose much of the Moreover, several judges tend to be weak”, the printout read: Vodka is good; lated into 23 scheduled languages of need to provide a summary. But that at such an event the India Foundation, beauty. But when a court judgment in loquacious and have been criticised for but the meat is awful. So a large number the Constitution, including Bodo, summary itself ran into controversy a Bharatiya Janata Party-affiliated think English is translated into national lan- that. Late V R Krishna Iyer consistently of specially trained translators have to Santhali and Sanskrit. because it is argued that the “basic tank, is organising. The organisers have guages the result could be a nightmare rode a polysyllabic mare to tilt at wind- be employed. The SC has often criticised lawmak- structure theory” came out of the sum- said more than 50 families “whose like the Tower of Babel. In an age-old mills of social injustice in his classic There are endless wrangles in ers for not correcting errors — even mary, not from the judgment. members have been victims of political nation like ours which had only a judgments. Several others also use exot- courts, reflected in judgments, over the typos — despite pointing them out. Quicksands abound in the legal field. violence in Bengal and all those survivors of family victims will narrate their stories of sorrow and horror”. The group is planning to prepare a report on this and present it to Home Minister The ascent of dissent Amit Shah. Star performer Tewari DIFFERING OPINION UPA Chairperson Financial sector committee reports have become as famous for Sonia Gandhi on dissent notes as their recommendations Name of committee Chairman Dissent notes Year of Tuesday came submission prepared to take on Fuller capital account convertibility SS Tarapore Surjit Bhalla 2006 the government on SUBHOMOY BHATTACHARJEE put in a dissent note as member of the There is a pattern to these dissent Mumbai IFSC Percy Mistry* Percy Mistry 2007 US President Donald second SS Tarapore committee report notes. Most of them have been about Trump's remarks on ccording to media reports, on capital account convertibility. This reconciling differences between the FSLRC Justice Srikrishna PJ Nayak, JR Verma, Kashmir. During the Finance Secretary Subhash was known as the committee on RBI and the finance ministry, the KJ Uddeshi, YH Malegam 2013 Zero Hour, as Manish A Chandra Garg will be putting “fuller” capital account convertibility, underlying issue being which institu- Committee for evolving a composite Raghuram Rajan Shaibal Gupta 2013 Tewari (pictured), who was leading the up a dissent note in the report by the since there was an earlier report on tion will be asked to cede power. development index of states Congress' charge on the issue, targeted Bimal Jalan committee reviewing the the same theme by the committee in Committees were expected to narrow th the government, Gandhi pulled out a capital framework of the Reserve Bank 1997. The earlier one did not have a the differences. In most cases, that 14 Finance Commission YV Reddy Abhijit Sen 2014 sheaf of papers from a plastic folder and of India (RBI). One key recommenda- dissent note. Some recommendations never happened, so the tensions per- Committee on Comprehensive Nachiket Mor Shikha Sharma, SS Mundra 2014 handed those to Tewari, who started tion will be how much of the central from both these committees became sist with varying intensity. Financial Services for Small Businesses reading out from the transcript of bank’s reserves should be transferred part of the policy framework. For instance, in 2018, the finance and Low Income Households** Trump’s remarks on Kashmir. He returned to the government. Garg has appar- The maximum number of mem- secretary chaired an Inter-Ministerial the papers after completing his ently suggested a one-time lump sum bers to put in a dissent note was the Committee for Finalisation of FRBM Review Committee NK Singh Arvind Subramanian 2017 intervention. Tewari had been passed transfer. Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Amendments to the Payment and Inter-Ministerial Committee for over and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was Garg is not the first to put in a dis- Commission chaired by Justice Settlement Act. The committee had finalisation of Amendments to the chosen leader of the Congress in the Lok sent note in a financial sector report. Srikrishna to streamline and update seven members, of whom the RBI rep- Payment and Settlement Ac Subhash C Garg S Ganesh Kumar 2018 Sabha. But during the ongoing session, In fact, it is rare to find any committee sectoral laws. Of the eight members resentative, S Ganesh Kumar, execu- *resigned from the committee in February 2007; **additional notes to the committee Tewari has been one of the star report for the financial sector since who wrote the report in 2013, four also tive director, had put in a dissent note. performers for the party. 2000 in which there hasn’t been a dis- penned dissent notes. At stake was who will get to police the financial sector reforms, of years, on pay within the sent note by at least one member. If Discussions on the report are pep- emerging fintech sector. which he chaired before Most of the dissent central services on promo- he does so, however, he would be the pered with these dissent notes, espe- No surprise, then, the practice has joining the government, notes have been tion prospects, on lateral first finance secretary to cially the one by P J Nayak. spread to other entities in the finan- went through peacefully, about reconciling entry and much more. For an accident-free India have put in a dissent note As former joint secretary, cial sector. Economist Abhijit Sen as but the “committee for differences between There were so many that it Rashtriya Loktantrik Party leader so far in the 20-odd reports capital markets, and former member of the 14th Finance evolving a composite the RBI and the is often difficult to make Hanuman Beniwal, an ally of the commissioned for the sec- chairman of Axis Bank, Commission had put in a dissent note.