CHENNAI : Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana on Saturday said there are “some barriers” in allowing courts to use local languages, and these would hopefully be solved soon through technology. He was responding to Chief Minister MK Stalin’s appeal to allow the use of Tamil in the Madras High Court. He also addressed Stalin’s other requests, including that the principles of social justice and inclusiveness be followed in appointment of judges to higher courts, and that a bench of the Supreme Court be set up in Chennai.
The CJI was speaking in Chennai, where he laid the foundation stone for a nine-storey administrative block of the Madras High Court, and inaugurated combined court buildings in Kallakurichi and Namakkal districts. The CM inaugurated the commercial court complex in Egmore. In his address, CJI Ramana said Tamilians take great pride in their language, food, and culture.
“They are at the forefront of protecting cultural and linguistic rights in the country. Even today when we think about the linguistic diversity of India, the battle fought by Tamilians comes to mind. As a child, when I visited my relatives in the city, I remember witnessing massive protests on the language issue though I was too young to understand what the issue involved,” he said, in an apparent reference to the anti-Hindi agitation piloted by the DMK in the state in the 1960s.