BANGALORE: The High Court has asked the lower judiciary to be cautious while interpreting and translating statutes from English to Kannada as there is no official translation available.
Justice Anand Byrareddy was hearing an appeal filed by M/S Alhind Tours and Travels against the order of the magistrate on dismissing a complaint and acquitting the accused company Taha International.
The magistrate court had passed the order in Kannada. Provisions of the Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act, 1881, the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) were translated to Kannada. The court found that the translation also reflected the personal views of the judge at some point.
Hence, Justice Byrareddy observed that caution would have to be exercised while interpreting the provisions of law or in addressing the nuances of the involved principles of law and pronouncing the same in Kannada, which may not be accurately reflected.
He observed that the court was fully conscious of the need to employ Kannada at all levels. The trial court may keep in view that there is no official translation in Kannada of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, CrPC, 1973 or any other Central Act, let alone the oceanic body of case law. “The higher courts may not be able to appreciate the correctness or otherwise of the views and opinions so expressed, which incidentally would be a seminal and personal view of the trial court judge, in Kannada, especially if the judges of the higher court are not as well versed as the trial court judge in the nascent and laboured legalese, in Kannada,” he added.