Comply with registry direction to type out High Court judgments; we cannot read them otherwise: CJI DY Chandrachud

Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Wednesday said that since the Supreme Court judges find it difficult to read High Court judgment copies with watermark, advocates ought to comply with the registry's directions to type out entire judgments without the watermark..The CJI said this in response to a lawyer who mentioned the problem of being asked to type out entire High Court judgments for filing in the Supreme Court. "Registry is saying when you taking out a true copy of the High Court judgment then please remove watermark and type entire judgment and submit. How do we type all the judgments?" the lawyer asked..The CJI responded that lawyers must comply with the registry's instructions and type out the judgments. He elaborated on the difficulties faced by the apex court judges in reading judgments with watermarks and requested the lawyers to cooperate with the Court."Comply with the objection. Type it out. We want to read the judgments and we cannot read with watermark. We cannot read with magnifying glasses. We have told the High Courts, but we cannot issue administrative directions to them. You have to cooperate with us," he said..This issue has been highlighted by CJI Chandrachud on multiple occasions in the past as well, before he became the CJI..Once, during the valedictory session of the three-day International Summit on Legal Professionals with Disabilities held in December 2020, he said,"A very simple thing - watermarks on judgments which are printed provide a very serious barrier to the handicapped in accessing legal information in the form of judgments.".In March 2021, he had said that High Courts and tribunals must abstain from placing watermarks on their orders and judgments, as it significantly hampers easy access to the document."You don't need watermarks to show authenticity. In today's date, the judgments can be digitally signed.".Once again in August 2021, he observed that large watermarks on copies of orders passed by various tribunals were making them difficult to read.The remarks were made in the context of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order which had a large watermark on it.“The watermarks on the judgments make them unreadable. Particularly for the visually challenged, there is a problem because the order is not machine readable. I had a law clerk last year who was blind, he couldn't read it because it was not machine readable. We had taken up the issue of watermarks with the High courts earlier. Will take up the issue with the NGT. The large logo on the page makes the order difficult to read. Even I was not able to read it comfortably,” he had said.