A medal for poor translation (Legal Reporter’s Diary)

NEW DELHI - There is one field where India could be assured a Commonwealth Games medal - erroenous judgements, many caused by poor translation. Or so believe some honourable judges of the Supreme Court.

Trial court proceedings usually take place in the language of the region and these are translated into English at the high court level. But the other day the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly pointed out that the impugned judgment of a high court suffered from errors of translation of trial court proceedings.

Justice Ganguly felt the translation was “mischievous”. However, Justice Singhvi had a different way of slamming it. He said the countries which are participating in the Commonwealth Games should be asked to bring along the judgments of their courts.

He said India would at least win one gold medal for having judgments with the highest number of mistakes. Justice Singhvi then pulled up the lawyer for misleading the court and holding back the truth.

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Proletariat or bourgeoisie

Is a lawyer who has taken up the case of a land tiller part of the proletariat or the bourgeoisie? The question surfaced when a tenant - essentially a land tiller - from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh finally got his case heard by the Supreme Court.

Senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi sought to impress the court about the legitimacy of his client’s claim by saying he himself had been intensely involved in the tenants’ struggle against ‘razakars’ (former big land owners) and that Lordship Markandey Katju was privy to it.

Well aware that senior counsel was trying to slip in an extra legal point in his arguments, Justice Katju said: “Mr. Dwivedi, earlier you were with the proletariat; now you have moved to the bourgeoisie. There are many like you.”

Realising that he had not succeeded, senior counsel putting his right hand on his chest said, “But on this issue, I am still with tenants!” The remark left Justice Katju nodding and smiling.

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Gujarat keeps them in high ’spirits’

Gujarat, the home state of Mahatma Gandhi, is the only state that officially practises prohibition. But the picture on the ground is different — as it appeared a little before Justice Aftab Alam and Justice R.M. Lodha could adorn the bench to hear the Sohrabuddin Sheikh murder case.

Senior counsel present were discussing how one could have a “good evening” in Ahmedabad. K.T.S. Tulsi, who represented the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), felt he would not be safe in Ahmedabad, but lawyer Dushyant Dave told him: “With Ram Jethmalani there, nothing would happen to you.”

Jethamalani, who was also round, quipped: “Per capita consumption of alcohol is the highest in Ahmedabad.” To which, Dave said the per capita consumption of ice cream preceded that of alcohol in the Gujarat city.

Subsequent proceedings in the matter showed that this discussion on “good evenings” in Ahmedabad had a spirited impact on two counsel!

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Foodgrain for thought

During the course of a hearing on the supply of foodgrain through the public distribution system to people living below the poverty line, Justice Dalveer Bhandari wondered why the government was procuring wheat and rice beyond its storage capacity and letting the unstored grain rot in the open.

“There has to be a correlation between procurement and storage. Why procure more than your storage capacity?” Justice Bhandari asked Additional Solicitor General Mohan Prasaran who had appeared for the federal government.

Justice Deepak Verma realised if the observations by Justice Bhandari were not clarified, then the apex court may be misunderstood on the essence of the foodgrain procurement policy.

“After harvesting, a farmer has to sell. He lines up in ‘mandis’ (wholesale markets) for days to sell the harvests. If he does not sell, what will he eat and you will have to buy? You have to create additional storage capacity to prevent the unstored foodgrain from going down the drain,” Justice Verma said.

(Parmod Kumar can be contacted at mazak1453@gmail.com)