Chief Ministers of various States on Saturday assured Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana that security at court complexes, including District Courts, would be improved on the lines of a two-tier security system followed in Jammu and Kashmir but there was no consensus on setting up a National Judicial Infrastructure Authority (NJIA) to decide on judicial infrastructure.

Such a body would be created at the State level where the Chief Minister of a particular State along with the Chief Justice of the High Court would decide on infrastructure.

Addressing a joint press conference along with Law Minister Kiren Rijiju after day-long deliberations of the conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices, the CJI also pointed out the bottlenecks in using regional language in courts.

Both Justice Ramana and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken about using local language in courts during the inaugural session.

Justice Ramana said, “Sometimes some of the judges are not familiar with the local language and the Chief Justice [of a High Court] will always be from outside.”

The CJI said a full Bench of the Supreme Court in 2014 had rejected a plea to use local language in courts but the debate resurfaced as Tamil Nadu raised the issue of using regional language in judicial proceedings.

“We do not have the technology or systems where the entire records have to be translated to local language or from local language to English. The logistic support is the biggest problem... We cannot implement reform in one day. I think it will happen only over a period of time,” the Chief Justice of India noted.

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