SUPREME COURT VIDHIK ANUVAAD SOFTWARE (SUVAS) - POLITY

News: SC’s translation projects raced ahead in 2023 as retd. HC judges, law clerks help AI

 

What's in the news?

       The Supreme Court of India’s monumental project of translating all of its 36,000 judgments into Scheduled Languages achieved unprecedented speed in 2023, with the E-SCR portal starting with just 2,238 translated judgments as of January and ending the year with over 31,000 rulings translated.

 

Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS):

       It was launched by the then CJI S.A. Bobde in November 2019.

 

Objectives:

       SC has developed SUVAS to promote and ensure the participation of regional language in judicial proceedings.

       It is a machine assisted translation tool trained by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 

Constitutional Provisions:

       Article 348(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution says that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and every High Court should be in English.

       Article 348(2) allows a State Governor, with the President's consent, to permit the use of Hindi or another state language in the High Court of that State.

       Hence, SUVAS conferred power under Article 348 of the Constitution.

 

Scheduled Languages:

The Eight Schedule of the Constitution provides 22 official languages. These languages are recognized for the purpose of communication in various levels of government and for the conduct of official business. Eight Schedule includes following languages:

       Assamese

       Bengali

       Bodo

       Dogri

       Gujarati

       Hindi

       Kannada

       Kashmiri

       Konkani

       Maithili

       Malayalam

       Manipuri

       Marathi

       Nepali

       Odia

       Punjabi

       Sanskrit

       Santali

       Sindhi

       Tamil

       Telugu

       Urdu