New Delhi: In a significant decision, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday announced "neutral citations" for all the judgements of the Supreme Court. As a result, all the 30,000 judgements will have neutral citations, in which a unique sequential number is assigned to each of the cases. The move is aimed at helping people identify cases and the text based on the number.
To begin with, neutral citations will be available for all judgements from 1 January 2023 onwards. After which, judgements prior to 2023 will be provided neutral citations. In the next slot, neutral citations will be for judgements prior to 2014 and then those before that. Finally, all judgements from 1950 till date will have neutral citations, the CJI explained.
Chandrachud said that hopefully all the High Courts will follow this system. Currently, neutral citation has already been introduced by the High Courts of Delhi, Madras and Kerala. This apart, an effort has been initiated for multi-lingual translation of all judgements. "We are also translating all judgments in all languages. And we're using machine learning tools and that is being verified by team of district judges," he said.
Deliberating on the difficulties faced during translations through tools, the CJI said if we say "leave granted", it may literally translate to "avakash prapt ho gaya". To do away with these errors, a team of district judges and law researchers are assisting the translation process. Supreme Court will be funding all, he added. The system of neutral citation was introduced in late 1990s by the courts in England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
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