From English to Everyone: India's Legal Language Challenge

In the corridors of a district court in Odisha, a litigant stands bewildered in the witness stand as proceedings unfold in English whilst lawyers converse in a mixture of Odia and English. This scene, observed by a law student Soumya Kalet, epitomises a fundamental crisis in India's justice system: the chasm between the language of law and the language of the people, the legal language challenge.

"I felt completely lost," recalls Kamala Devi, a vendor in front of Dilli Haat INA, who fought a dispute case over her land in her village. "The judge spoke in English, the lawyers argued in English, and the documents were in English. I couldn't understand whether I was winning or losing my own case."

The litigant has a fundamental right to participate in courtroom proceedings and to speak in a language they understand before the magistrate, as the right to justice conferred by the Constitution of India under Article 21. Yet for over seven decades since independence, English has remained the dominant language of India's higher judiciary, creating what Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud describes as a system where English in its "legal avatar" is not comprehensible to 99.9% of citizens.

This linguistic barrier has effectively excluded millions from meaningful participation in their own legal proceedings. However, the proposed solutions—largely technological—raise fundamental questions about whether they address the deeper structural inequalities within India's justice system.

The constitutional architecture reveals inherent contradictions in India's approach to justice. Article 348(1)(a) mandates English for Supreme Court and High Court proceedings, whilst Clause (2) permits states to authorise Hindi or other official languages with presidential consent. Several states have embraced this provision—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh use Hindi in their high courts—whilst proposals from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Karnataka have been declined.

Prakhar Khandelwal, a final-year law student at National Law University Delhi, observes: "We spend five years learning to think legally in English, but we're expected to serve communities that don't speak English. The disconnect is profound—we're trained to be legal technicians, not justice facilitators."

The Technology Band-Aid and The Cultural Chasm

The Supreme Court's SUVAS (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software), introduced in December 2019, translates court judgment transcripts into regional languages. However, critics question whether technology addresses root causes. Legal technology researcher Siddharth Peter de Souza observes: "The stated objectives—increased productivity, improved efficiency, unclogging legal processes—risk overlooking the deeper question of how justice is accessed, realised, and attained by people."

Priya Sharma, a computational linguist, highlights technical limitations: "Legal concepts evolved within specific linguistic traditions. Our AI systems struggle with cultural context—try translating 'natural justice' into Bhojpuri whilst preserving legal meaning. The technology can convert words, but can it preserve justice?"

Dr Mohammad Imran Khan's research in Jammu and Kashmir reveals systemic inequalities: "Language barriers create opportunities for exploitation. Lawyers' fees often hinge on court hearings, creating potential incentives to prolong cases. Due to language barriers, crucial nuances may be lost in translation."

The region's Official Language Act 2020 established five official languages—Kashmiri, Dogri, Urdu, Hindi, and English—yet many cannot read or write Kashmiri, reflecting wider patterns where colonial-era policies disrupted traditional linguistic transmission. Karan Bashir, a student at Galgotias University who hails from Kashmir, explains: "We have a generation that thinks in Kashmiri but dreams in English. The legal system demands English fluency, but our grandmother's stories of justice were told in Kashmiri. This isn't just about language—it's about whose knowledge systems are valued."

Voices from the Margins

The human cost of linguistic exclusion becomes apparent in testimonies from those navigating the system. Advocate Meera Nair, who works extensively with rural litigants, explains: "I've witnessed cases where crucial evidence was misunderstood because the translator couldn't convey the cultural context of a regional expression. Legal translation isn't just about words—it's about preserving the integrity of human experience within legal frameworks."

Rajesh Yadav, a rickshaw driver who fought a compensation case, shares: "The lawyer would speak to me in Hindi, then argue in English. I never knew if he was saying what I told him. How can there be justice when you don't understand your own case?"

Students at vernacular law colleges face particular challenges. Sunita Devi, studying law in Hindi at Patna University, observes: "We study contracts in Hindi, but all important cases are in English. When we graduate, we're expected to practice in English courts. It's like learning to swim in a pool and being thrown into the ocean."

Current technological optimism must be balanced with structural realities. Systemic pendency is driven by chronically low judge-to-litigant ratios, inadequate infrastructure, and procedural bottlenecks. The backlog of cases across Indian courts has now exceeded 51 million, with 45 million pending in subordinate and district courts, and over 80,000 in the Supreme Court alone. Alarmingly, the central government previously stated that, for nearly half of the judicial vacancies, no recommendations were made by High Court collegiums—despite procedural guidelines requiring such proposals to be initiated at least six months in advance of anticipated vacancies.

Judicial appointments continue to pose a significant challenge. Five High Courts—Allahabad, Punjab and Haryana, Gujarat, Bombay, and Calcutta—account for 171 out of the 327 total vacant positions across the 25 High Courts in the country. This figure represents over 52% of all current vacancies.

The sanctioned strength of judges across all High Courts is 1,114, meaning nearly 29.4% of posts remain unfilled. This shortage of judges directly contributes to a rising backlog of cases in the higher judiciary, with pending matters in the High Courts alone nearing 6.2 million.

Soumya Kalet argues: "Technology solutions risk becoming 'digital colonialism'—using AI to impose English legal concepts on vernacular legal consciousness. The question isn't whether we can translate English judgments into regional languages, but whether we should be producing English judgments at all."

Kalet also warns against "technology theatre". "Using technology to project solutions without addressing structural challenges. The problem isn't that citizens can't understand judgments—it's that the entire legal system operates in a language foreign to their experience."

Meera Nair suggests that language barriers in the legal system compound existing inequalities: "Litigants from marginalised communities face multiple disadvantages. Linguistic exclusion intersects with caste, class, and gender discrimination to create compounded barriers to justice."

The Education Emergency

Most law schools operate primarily in English, creating what critics call "linguistic apartheid" within the legal profession. The impact on legal practice is profound. Advocate Deepak Singh, practising in the Odisha High Court, explains: "I studied law in English, but 90% of my clients speak only Hindi or Awadhi. I spend more time translating than advocating. The system makes me an intermediary rather than a representative."

Students have begun questioning this model. Prakhar Khandelwal argues: "Legal education should empower students to serve their communities, not alienate them from those communities. My friends and I keep on talking about this. The current system produces lawyers who can quote English precedents but can't explain basic rights to their neighbours."

The path forward requires a rights-based approach to judicial reform that addresses power imbalances created by linguistic exclusion. However, current discourse remains dominated by technological optimism that may obscure deeper structural issues. As researcher Siddharth Peter de Souza argues: "Rather than treating justice administration as a neutral, technocratic process, it must be recognised as inherently political, with consequences for citizens' rights."

As legal translators continue their work, they illuminate both the possibility and the limitations of linguistic justice. Their efforts reveal that the promise of justice in local languages remains unfulfilled, not due to a lack of technology, but due to deeper structural inequalities that technology alone cannot address.

The journey towards linguistic justice represents more than administrative change—it requires confronting the colonial legacies that continue to shape India's legal system. Whether this transformation will occur depends not on the sophistication of translation software but on the willingness to reimagine justice itself in terms accessible to all citizens, regardless of their linguistic background.