Chandigarh January 3: Haryana Cabinet which met under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Lal here today decided to request Haryana Governor to take consent of the President of India to authorize the use of Hindi language, in addition to English language, for the purpose of proceedings, any judgement, decree or orders passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court pertaining to jurisdiction to the State of Haryana.

Article 348 of the Constitution of India provides that until Parliament by law otherwise provides, all proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every High Court shall be in the English language. It further provides that the Governor of a State may, with previous consent of the President, authorize the use of Hindi language, or any other language used for any official purpose of the State, in proceedings in the High Court having it principal seat in that State but nothing shall apply to any judgment, decree or order passed or made by such High Court.
Section 7 of the Official Language Act, 1963 empowers the Governor of the State with the prior consent of the President to authorise the use of Hindi or the official language of the State in addition to the English language for the purposes of any judgment, decree or orders passed or made by the High Court for that State and where any judgement, decree or orders is passed or made in any such language (other than the English language), it shall be accompanied by a translation of the same in the English language issued under the authority of the High Court.

The Haryana Government had received a demand letter signed by 78 MLAs of Haryana State, Advocate General of Haryana and hundreds of advocates. The Chief Minister has also expressed his interest to get Hindi language authorized for use in the High Court so that the citizens of Haryana can understand the entire justice process in their own language and can easily put their views before the Courts. Recently, in the Diamond Jubilee program of the Kerala High Court, the President Mr. Ramnath Kovind himself also emphasized that the High Court decisions should be made available in the language of the plaintiff. The Indian language campaign, started by the advocates, intellectuals and jurists of India, is also working in this direction that work in Indian languages should be started in the High Courts of India. Therefore, it was prudent to authorize the use of Hindi language in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana.

Being a Hindi language region, Haryana came into existence in the year 1966 as a separate State. In 1969, under Section 3 of the Haryana Official Language Act, Hindi was made official language of the State of Haryana. Since then, Hindi language is being used mostly as the language of administration. To spread the propagation of Hindi as the language of the people of the State, it is necessary that this language should be used in our day to day work. The purpose of justice in a democracy is that the plaintiff should get justice quickly in his own language and should not remain speechless during the proceedings.