Lawyers should produce typed copies, High Court judgments unreadable due to large watermarks: Supreme Court

Today (March 22), the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud advised lawyers to produce typed copies of the High Court judgments by following the directions of the Supreme Court registry. This is because the High Court judgments are unreadable due to the presence of large watermarks on them. This issue was addressed by the CJI when an advocate mentioned the difficulty caused by the registry’s insistence to produce typed copies of judgments.

In this context, CJI Chandrachud opined “Comply with the registry. Type it out! We want to read the judgments and we cannot read with watermarks because they are too large. We cannot read with magnifying glasses.” Following this statement, he also added that a judge has to read hundreds of files every day whereas the presence of watermarks makes it difficult for them to read. In further conversation, a lawyer urged that directions should be given to the High Courts, not to put watermarks on judgments. CJI told the lawyer that the High Courts are not under his control yet a letter has been sent to the Chief Justices of different High Courts concerning the issue.

Earlier in 2021 when CJI was Justice DY Chandrachud, he orally remarked on the issue of watermarks on judgments, “Tribunals don’t come under us, but we will deal with the issue in the E-committee. We have previously taken up this concern with the High Court also. We will get in touch with NGT. It is very bad, their orders just cannot be read.”