SC tells HCs to write rulings in language easy to understand

Supreme Court sent back an “incomprehensible” verdict to Himachal Pradesh High Court for fresh consideration saying judgments must make sense to litigants.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna said use of complex and long sentences in judgments defeat the efficacy of justice delivery as they confuse litigants as to how and why a court rendered a particular decision.

Terming a judgment of a division bench of Himachal Pradesh HC “incomprehensible” and “difficult to navigate through” even for the SC judges who have spent more than two decades as constitutional court judges, the bench said, “A litigant for whom the judgment is primarily meant would be placed in an even more difficult position.

Untrained in the law, the litigant is confronted with language which is not heard, written or spoken in contemporary expression.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said, “Language of the kind in a judgment defeats the purpose of judicial writing. Judgment writing of the genre before us in appeal detracts from the efficacy of the judicial process. The purpose of judicial writing is not to confuse or confound the reader behind the veneer of complex language.”