Not yet time for Hindi-medium LLB: Why law colleges are slow to embrace regional languages

NEW DELHI: Addressing an event on December 18, 2024, the union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said, “Soon Indian languages will be the court language. A time will come when a lawyer will be able to fight a court case in Punjabi in the Supreme Court. With the use of technology Supreme Court judges will be able to translate them.”

Over the years, several Supreme Court judges, including the present Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and former CJI DY Chandrachud have stressed on the need to impart legal education in regional languages.

But as of now, for all law schools, the medium of instruction is English; it is also the lingua franca of all higher courts.

Educators say the vision may be noble but highlight several challenges that will make teaching law in regional languages difficult.

Law School Diversity: CLAT exam, teachers

The premier law institutes – the National Law Universities (NLUs) – admit students from across the country through the national-level Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) which is in English.

Ved Kumari, vice chancellor of NLU Odisha, explained, “First, our institutions do not have language-based admission. I have students from different states. Each state has its own language, so in how many languages will I run the courses? I am based in Odisha and Odia is the local language so at the max I can teach English or Odia. But then what will people from other states do?”

Kumari, who had been the dean of Faculty of Law Delhi University (DU Law Faculty), added: “When in north India, people wanted us to teach in Hindi, but students from the northeast couldn’t understand Hindi. In this situation it was always easier to teach in English.”

Teachers from diverse linguistic backgrounds will face the same problems. Educators raise questions about the logistics of training them.

“Training faculty members proficient in both law and regional languages presents logistical challenges for the institute. How do we hire teachers based on the language they know?” said Abhishek Thommandru, assistant professor at Alliance School of Law, Alliance University, Bengaluru.

Kumari added that even with 50% of teachers fluent in Odia, it would be a challenge.

“Assuming that of the teachers in my institute, around 50% are from Odisha and another 50% are from outside. The ones who are from other states cannot teach in Odia. So, the 50% who are Odia have to be experts in all 60 papers which need to be taught. We do not have that kind of expertise. It will also curtail the right to job and movement,” she said.

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Law school resource constraints

The other important aspect to this idea is the lack of books, resources in regional languages.

“Developing a robust legal education system in regional languages requires substantial investment. Translating legal materials, creating textbooks, and building a comprehensive bilingual curriculum will demand expertise and funding. Most legal resources, including textbooks, case commentaries, and journals are predominantly in English. Translating these into regional languages is both time-consuming and resource-intensive,” said Thommandru.

DK Bandyopadhyay, chairman of Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida, said that it is not just about making textbooks available in regional languages.

“Teachers to be made aware of the terminology associated with different facets of law in the regional languages, students coming from different regions, availability of different judgments in different languages are some of the challenges institutes have to deal with,” he said.

With the government highlighting this as an important mandate of National Education Policy, 2020, in December 2022, then minister of law of justice Kiran Rijjiju had said that the ministry was digitising a legal glossary of 65,000 words and making it available to the public via an online platform. The plan was to also crowd-source newly-coined terms in Indian languages.

“The ministry is in the process of identifying frequently-used words in the legal documents and creating a transitive vocabulary/common core vocabulary by coining words from common roots which would be adaptable by all the Indian languages so that the translation of legal documents from one Indian language to another Indian language would be easier,” Rijjiju had said.

However, educators say mere translation is not enough; it is also about keeping translated materials updated with new legal developments, amendments, and case laws.

“Without timely updates, students may rely on outdated information, hampering their education and understanding. Establishing libraries, digital resources, and support systems in regional languages is crucial but costly,” said Thommandru.

Even most legal databases, research platforms (like SCC, Manupatra), and case management software are available in English. Plus, 25% of the questions in the CLAT exam have English comprehension.

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BCI: Plans for change

As part of a 10-year Perspective Action Plan for Promotion of Indian Languages in Courts and Legal Education, the Bar Council of India had set up a committee with former CJI Sharad Bobde as chair. The committee was to recommend measures to enhance the use of Hindi and other regional languages in legal education.

In 2022, the New Indian Express reported, Chamu Krishna Shastry, chairman of the high-powered committee for the promotion of Indian languages under the ministry of education, said that law textbooks in regional languages will be made available by the year-end.

The report said: “We are starting the work to publish law textbooks in regional languages for undergraduate courses. The idea is that colleges and institutes shouldn’t face any difficulty in imparting legal education to students interested in studying in their mother tongue. Textbooks will be published for 40 subjects identified for UG courses and 20 for PG.”

However, in July 2024, the three new criminal laws came into effect. The “Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” the “Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita,” and the “Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam,” replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act respectively.

Integrating technology

With indigenous technology like Anuvadini AI Law Dictionary, the government states that it has been providing over 35,000 legal terms and their translations in 22 Indian languages.

As per a report in the Education Times, law universities are using Anuvadini to translate English textbooks. The report stated that 18-20 colleges across the country are using books translated by the app.

“The translation technology has made it easier for the Supreme Court, but when you look at auto translation, sometimes they are funny and also wrong. It has improved but it is not beyond that. ….There is no understanding of deliverables. It is a good idea, but how does one deliver it?” asked Kumari.

Former CJI Chandrachud, while speaking at the convocation of Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University Lucknow, had said that 37,000 Supreme Court decisions have been translated into Hindi.

However, there are questions about standardising legal terminology across regional languages, even with the integration of technology.

“Legal terms often have no direct translations in regional languages. For example, technical legal concepts may lose their precise meaning when translated, leading to misinterpretation or inconsistency,” said Thommandru.

Students add that not every legal term can be translated, the meanings are not literal. “Just to get an understanding we can translate it. However, using it in a larger answer or case study is not possible. There are Latin words used as well which cannot be translated easily,” said Tarun Yadav, a law student at DU.

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Hindi-medium law degree: Career impact

While the idea behind having legal education in the vernacular is rooted in inclusivity and justice, it won’t help students’ careers.

“Students [emerging from programmes in regional languages] going for higher studies to other regions or abroad, may take time to get acquainted with English. Students may face challenges in practising in the Supreme Court or some of the High Courts where English is the transactional language,” said Bandyopadhyay.

A news report in The Hindu from September, 2024, highlighted that out of India’s 25 High Courts, only four — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar — are allowed to use Hindi in their proceedings and legal documents.

Apart from CLAT examinations, the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) is also conducted in English. This puts students studying in regional languages at a disadvantage.

There are also concerns that employers in urban firms, courts, or multinational organisations will prioritise English proficiency, potentially limiting job opportunities for regional-language graduates.

‘Bilingual proficiency’

Most educators stress that institutes need to focus on bilingual proficiency, drawing inspiration from countries like Germany and Japan, where education integrates both native and global languages.

“A phased approach, beginning with pilot programmes in select institutions, can help identify best practices. Collaboration among policymakers, legal educators, and practitioners will play a vital role in achieving this vision. With careful planning, this initiative can create a future where linguistic diversity strengthens, rather than hinders, India’s legal system,” added Thommandru.

However, Vimal Kumar Vishwakarma, assistant professor of English at DNL University, Jabalpur, in a paper titled ‘Language and Legal Education in India’, said, “First, embracing English as the language of common higher education, specifically in the legal field, will solve the problem of linguistic disparity to much an extent, keeping in mind the fact that the Supreme Court and high courts hold on to English as their official language. The states have to be simultaneously persuaded to include English as one of the priority subjects in their curricula, which is at par with the local language. Chiefly, discourses related to Indian polity and social sciences should be in English medium so that the students remain enlightened with the technical as well as legal expressions.”