Aastha Thakur
Published on: 02 September, 2022 at 23:23 IST
The Supreme Court on Friday denied a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that asked the court to order that Sanskrit become the official language of India. The Court ruled that the parliament, not the court, should be the appropriate body to consider the issue.
“Why should we issue a notice or declare for publicity? We may share some of your views but the right forum to debate this is in parliament. It needs amendment to the Constitution,”, the bench of Justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari ruled.
Sanskrit should be recognised as a national language, according to the petitioner’s attorney, since it is a mother tongue from which other languages have drawn inspiration. The Apex court rejected the argument and stated that the petitioner may be free to bring such a case to the government.
The Court reasoned that, “You draft your prayer in Sanskrit. Why should we issue a notice or declare, for publicity? We may share some of your views but the right forum to debate this is in parliament. It needs amendment in Constitution”
Furthermore, the Bench reiterated that the Court can’t get involved with this topic.
“We refuse to entertain the petition. Dismissed. Counsel at liberty to make appropriate representation before concerned authorities”
Sanskrit was requested to be declared the national language in the PIL that former IAS official and attorney KG Vanzara submitted. The argument said that such a move will not violate the present Constitutional provisions which allow for English and Hindi as the country’s official languages.