Judgements should be written in clear & precise way so that common man can understand: SC

July 13: The Supreme Court on Thursday started a debate in the post script on how to ensure “more crisp, clear and precise judgments so that the common man can understand what is the law being laid down,” stressing that “after all, it is for the common man that the judicial system exists.” It added that judgments are becoming “more complex and verbose.”

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy asked the legal fraternity to ponder over its suggestion to have “succinctly framed written synopsis in advance, and the same being adhered to in course of oral arguments to be addressed over a limited time period.” The six-page postscript was added to the judgment by the three judges who felt strongly about making judgments meaningful to the common man.  While judges have a big role in this, the bench said that lawyers share an equal responsibility by making time-bound arguments and supplying brief, precise synopsis of arguments and laws.

“The Wren & Martin principles of precis writing must be adopted. But then how is this to be achieved if the submissions itself go on for hours on end with vast amounts of material being placed before the Court; with the expectation that each aspect would be dealt with in detail failing which review applications will be filed,” the bench said.