SC imposes Rs.25,000 cost for judicial order's faulty English translation

The Supreme Court on Friday imposed a cost of Rs. 25,000 on a petitioner in a criminal case for filing an erroneous English translation of a judicial order in Hindi which was wrong on grammar, construction of sentences, usage of words and punctuation.

Asking the petitioner to deposit the cost within 24 hours with the legal service authority, the vacation bench of Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre and Justice Ashok Bhushan said that the cost would continue to increase in the event of failure to deposit the amount within the stipulated time.

The displeased judges said that they had to struggle for one hour to figure out the sense of the order, and that they have never come across an order blended with such grammatical and other mistakes.

The court imposed the cost after lawyer Aishwarya Bhati appearing for petitioner Vardha Ram told the bench that the grammatical error that the court was finding in the high court's order was in fact on account of faulty translation as the original order was in Hindi.

Initially, the apex court bench had taken exception to the high court judge passing an order in English which was erroneous on account of grammar, syntax, word usage of words and punctuation and sent the order back to the subordinate court for fresh order.

However, the vacation bench changed its order and imposed cost on the petitioner as Bhati admitted to mistake by the "official translator" of the court below.

"You should have seen it (translation) yourself," the court told the lawyer and telling her that she should be "sorry".

"You should be sorry," the bench said.

--IANS

pk/vd