On Constitution Day, a look at how Centre plans to make law more accessible to common people

Constitution Day 2022: Legislative Department has prepared a glossary of 65,000 legal terms, informed Union Law Minister.

NEW DELHI: Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, on the occasion of Constitution Day, said that the Centre is working on a project to make legal terminology accessible to common people in their regional languages. The Law Minister claimed that language is a barrier to people achieving legal justice and understanding how to approach the justice system. He observed that legal terminology is not available in regional languages. In order to change the status quo, the Centre is trying to get legal glossaries published in regional languages.

Regional language in justice system

"In a vast country like India where 65 percent of the total population still lives in rural areas and where the regional and local language is the medium of understanding, language becomes one of the perceived barriers in ensuring universal access to justice of the country when legal material and legal terminology are not available in local language understandable by the common man," said Rijiju.

Reiterating PM Modi's call for encouraging local languages in courts, Rijiju said that this is needed to make the common man connected to the justice system. The Law Ministry has constituted 'Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti' to take on the task. 

"In this context, I am happy to inform that under the aegis of Law Ministry, the Bar Council of India has constituted Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, chaired by former Chief Justice of India SA Bobde," he explained.

"Legislative Department has prepared a glossary of 65,000 legal terms. We plan to digitise and make it available to the public in a searchable format. Efforts will be made to collect legal glossaries published in regional languages, digitise and make it available to the public in the searchable format," said Rijiju.

Rijiju pointed out that the founding fathers placed immense responsibility on the countrymen. "Apt to recall the words of Babasaheb Dr BR Ambedkar when he cautioned us by saying, let`s not forget that this independence has thrown on us great responsibilities, by an independence we have lost the excuse of blaming the British for anything going wrong," he said.

Constitution Day

The day has been celebrated as Constitution Day since 2015, to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution of India by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, as per an official press release.

During the programme, the Prime Minister also launched various new initiatives under the e-court project. The Project is an effort to provide services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary through ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) enablement of courts.

(With ANI inputs)