The handwriting of the Himachal High Court’s decision is beyond comprehension, the SC said – is this Latin language?

The Supreme Court has expressed displeasure over the language of the judgment delivered by the Himachal Pradesh High Court in a case. Presiding over a two-judge bench, Justice KM Joseph asked the counsel for the appellant Nidhesh Gupta as to what the High Court wanted to say. Justice said, ‘What do we understand by this? Is it Latin?’ Justice Joseph expressed surprise at Gupta’s reply, when he said that he too did not understand it.

Justice PS Narasimha, who was included in the bench, said that the decision may have to be returned to the High Court for rewriting it. The senior counsel then told the bench that it was a dispute over property and that he could explain that from the trial court’s decision, which was very clear. To this, the court asked the counsel for the other side to sit down and see if the matter could be resolved through talks in two weeks.

This is not the first case regarding the handwriting of the verdict
This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has expressed its disappointment over such decisions of the High Court. In March 2021, a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah expressed their annoyance with the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s decision and said that we are at our wit’s end. This is happening over and over again.

‘I started doubting my own understanding’
On November 27, 2020, a petition was filed on behalf of the State Bank of India against a similar decision of the High Court. On this, Justice Chandrachud asked in Hindi, “What judgment has been written? I could not understand anything. There are long sentences. Then, somewhere a strange comma is visible. I do not understand anything. My understanding is starting to doubt. Maybe I should have used Tiger Balm.”