The division bench, comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad, sought the government’s response while hearing a PIL moved by Veangai L Prakash Raj, an advocate, seeking to do away with the present software, which insists on feeding details of executants, claimant, witness and property details only in Tamil in the online portal. 

The bench, on wondering as to how the Government which was using both Tamil and English for issuing circulars and GOs is finding it difficult to include English in the registration department, sought the Additional Advocate General C Manishankar to get instructions on the possibility of including English in the application forms for the registration of documents and posted the case for further hearing to August 30. 

The bench also directed the petitioner to submit the software to the State that allowed use of English in registration.

The petitioner had contended that prior to the upgradation of the software (STAR 6.7) in 2018, the scope of using English was possible. Now, though the online portal allows selection of the drafting language of the document and indexing to be made in English or Tamil, the documents which are indexed and drafted in English are rejected by the Sub-Registrar offices stating that the details are to be indexed only in Tamil and documents are to be drafted in Tamil.

Also, noting that when he submitted a document of sale deed in English of his claimant who can’t read Tamil, the petitioner submitted that the Tambaram registration office not only rejected the document, but also failed to provide any official order making Tamil mandatory for such registrations.

Further, stating that he cannot force a person to sign a document which is not drafted in a language to which the Registrant is ignorant and further it is against basic human rights and professional ethics, the petitioner-advocate sought the court to direct the Registration authorities to issue a circular to allow registration of deeds that are indexed and drafted either in English or Tamil by utilising the online STAR registration portal as per the wish and understanding of the parties to the documents.