Our Correspondent
TINSUKIA: Despite Assamese being recognized as the language of the court, no court in Assam follows this practice, even as the Supreme Court mandated the use of 2 official languages in the court in recording evidence and judgment in court proceedings. While Assamese and English are the languages of the court in the Brahmaputra Valley, Bengali and English are the 2 languages in the Barak Valley.
Strongly criticizing the present system prevailing only in Assam courts, Ashoke Kumar Karmakar, vice president of the All Assam Lawyers’ Association (AALA), in a press meet at Tinsukia Press Club on Tuesday said that the usage of the language of the court, though made mandatory under Order 18 and Rule 5 of the Civil Procedure Court and Section 132 and 392 of BNSS-23, is not followed by any court in Assam, thus depriving the litigants of the rights to understand the court’s proceedings as it is recorded in a translated version of English notwithstanding the litigants testifying their statements in Assamese, said Advocate Karmakar. A memorandum to this effect will be submitted to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court soon, informed Advocate Karmakar. For proper monitoring of the court proceeding, he also suggested introducing dual screens in lower courts.
Advocate Karmakar also detailed the resolutions adopted at the Pathsala convention of the All Assam Lawyers’ Association held from September 27 to September 29. The Association demanded that the special courts should be decentralized facilitating a cost-effective legal system. To keep parity with the establishment of the 2nd Secretariat at Dibrugarh while welcoming the move of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Association urged the CM to establish one bench of the Gauhati High Court in Upper Assam. The Association also demanded to provide Rs 10 thousand monthly as a stipend to new advocates for the period from 1 year to 5 years while financial support of Rs 25 thousand be extended to the practicing lawyers who attained 60 years of age. Karmakar also thanked the government for granting Rs 10 crore as a corpus fund to support needy lawyers. The press meet was also attended by Advocate Udayananda Borgohain and Advocate Niroj Gogoi.
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