Plan to expand SC to reflect constitutional aspirations: CJI

Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday informed about a plan to expand the Supreme Court by constructing a new building which would have 27 additional courtrooms, registrar courtrooms, and adequate facilities for lawyers and litigants.

"The new building will reflect constitutional aspirations and beliefs and priorities of the Indian people in addition to providing a space which facilitates access to justice," he said.

Speaking at Independence Day function organised by Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the CJI said that the plan to expand Supreme Court will be in two phases as a new building will come up with 27 additional courtrooms, four registrar courts, and adequate facilities for lawyers and litigants.

He also emphasised on the need to overhaul judicial infrastructure on the priority basis to make the courts accessible and inclusive.

The Chief Justice said in the first phase the museum and the annexe building will be demolished to construct a new building providing 15 courtrooms, library for SCBA and Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA), offices for the officials of these Bar bodies, canteen for lawyers and litigants along with women bar rooms.

The Chief Justice said the proposal has been submitted to the central government, the Department of Justice, and a detailed plan report has also been drawn up, which has also been submitted.

He said in the next phase some of the existing part of the court complex will be demolished for the construction of the second part of the new building will accommodate 12 courtrooms and registrar courts, a lounge for SCBA and SCAORA.

“The new building will reflect constitutional aspirations and beliefs and priorities of the Indian people in addition to providing a space which facilitates access to justice….technology is the best tool at our disposal to eliminate the inefficiency and opacity surrounding the judicial process,” he said.

He said, “We are implementing the phase 3 of the e-courts project, which has received budgetary sanction for Rs 7000 crore….it seeks to revolutionise by interlinking all courts throughout the country, setting up infrastructure of paperless courts, digitisation of court records, setting up of advanced e-seva kendras”.

He also pointed out the Prime Minister in his Independence Day speech at Red Fort mentioned about the efforts of the Supreme Court to translate the judgements in regional languages.

"Up to now, 9,423 judgements have been translated in regional languages," he said.

Of all 15 languages in which SC judgements have been translated, the maximum 8,977 are in Hindi followed by 128 in Tamil, 86 in Gujarati, 50 each in Malayalam and Odia, 33 in Telugu, 31 in Bengali, 24 in Kannada, 20 in Marathi, 11 in Punjabi, 4 each in Assamese and Nepali, 3 in Urdu and one each in Garo and Khasi.

In his speech, the PM said, "I thank the Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court has said the operative part of the judgments will be made available in the language of the party who has come to the Court. The importance of mother tongue is increasing today."

At SC function, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Attorney General R Venkatramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, SCBA President Adish C Aggrawala and office bearers as well as sitting SC judges and senior advocates among others were present.