The Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law & Justice, Government of India, in collaboration with the Bar Council of India (BCI), organized a National Conference on "Strengthening Legal Education through Integration of Regional Languages" on July 11, 2026, at the Bar Council of India premises in New Delhi. The conference was attended by Hon'ble Justice Rajendra Menon (Chairperson, Armed Forces Tribunal and Co-Chairperson Standing Committee on the Legal Education, Bar Council of India), Shri Manan Kumar Mishra (Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha and Chairman, Bar Council of India), and Dr. Rajiv Mani (Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs), along with senior government representatives, vice-chancellors of legal education centers, bar members, judiciary representatives, and legal academicians.
The primary objective was to formulate a Ten-Year Perspective Action Plan for promoting legal education in Hindi and other Indian languages within the justice delivery system. The deliberations focused on developing a phased, structured, measurable, and quality-assured framework for integrating Indian languages into legal education while preserving English as an important national and international link language. The proposed framework aims to create a bilingual and progressively multilingual legal education model to enhance legal comprehension, improve access to justice, strengthen legal aid and clinical legal education, and better prepare legal professionals for practice before district and subordinate courts.
Participants emphasized the role of technology in accelerating language integration, specifically mentioning Artificial Intelligence-enabled translation tools, digital legal repositories, standardized legal glossaries, and terminology databases. These technologies are intended to facilitate accurate and reliable legal education in Indian languages, subject to rigorous validation by legal and linguistic experts.
The conference resolved to work towards a National Declaration on Indian Languages in Legal Education, finalize the broad framework of the Ten-Year Perspective Action Plan for phased implementation, and establish a National Steering Committee jointly anchored by the Department of Legal Affairs and the Bar Council of India to oversee, guide, and monitor the implementation of these reforms. The initiative aligns with the vision of Viksit Bharat @2047 and aims to promote inclusive, accessible, and high-quality legal education through calibrated integration of Indian languages.