Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution in English not in Hindi: Kerala

NEW DELHI: What should the Supreme Court rely on – the English or Hindi text of the Constitution - while examining the true meaning of denomination that appears in Article 26 and in resolving the apparent conflict between individual freedom to religion and the denominational religious rights?

This seminal question propped up a number of times in different forms before a 9-J bench led by CJI Surya Kant, which is at the fag end of a prolonged faith vs fundamental right debate that got renewed after the controversial 2018 SC judgment quashing the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple custom of barring the entry of women in 10-50 age group.

Many senior advocates had argued that the landmark Shirur Mutt judgment of 1954 erred in interpreting denomination by accepting its meaning as given in Oxford Dictionary, which carried western religious bias. The judgment had said, “The word ‘denomination’ has been defined in the Oxford Dictionary to mean “A collection of individuals classed together under the same name: a religious sect or body having a common faith and organisation and designated by a distinctive name.”

They had argued that the correct meaning of ‘denomination’ is available in the Hindi version of the Constitution, which puts it as ‘sampradaya’. But the Kerala govt through senior advocate Jaideep Gupta said the Constituent Assembly had adopted the Constitution framed in English language and that the Hindi translation was never adopted by the Constituent Assembly.

Hence, the SC should go by the English text of the Constitution and not the Hindi version of it, Gupta said and insisted on this despite the insertion of Article 394A through constitutional amendment in 1987 provided that – “The translation of this Constitution and of every amendment thereof published under this Article shall be deemed, for all practical purposes, the authoritative text thereof in the Hindi language.”