The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Language row: State seeks stay on High Court order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 09, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Language row: State seeks stay on High Court order

B.S. Ramesh

SLP filed in Supreme Court

Case is likely to come up for hearing next week
1,400 schools have sought nod to teach in English medium

BANGALORE: The State Government on Thursday filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP-civil) in the Supreme Court seeking a stay of the July 2, 2008 order of the Karnataka High Court, which said that the language policy is not applicable to private unaided and minority institutions.

Sanjay Hegde, Senior Standing Counsel for Karnataka in the Supreme Court, told The Hindu that the SLP was filed in the Supreme Court Registry and the State would now urge the court to hear the case early, preferably before the vacation.

Urgency

The SLP says admissions to primary schools in the State began in April and a notification had to be issued on the availability of seats. Though the main case relating to language policy is pending before the Supreme Court, it said some private schools had declared that English would be the medium of instruction.

Apprehension

The State said it apprehended that some of the institutions would file a contempt petition against its officials for not implementing the July 2 Full Bench order of the High Court.

Though the Full Bench had upheld the language policy, it said that the State could not compel students of private and unaided schools to learn Kannada or their mother tongue at the primary school level.

The SLP says the State had issued endorsements refusing permission to institutions to start English-medium schools or to switch over from Kannada to English medium. It said several schools and the Karnataka Unaided School Managements Association had petitioned the High Court against this order. The case, it said, had come up before a single judge who said that since the Full Bench order was not stayed by the Supreme Court, the State was bound to follow the order.

Hearing

The case, in all probability, is likely to come up for hearing next week. Till then, all the Government can do is hope that no school files a contempt case against it in the High Court.

A total of 1,400 schools covering all the four educational districts have filed applications seeking permission to teach in English medium. Almost all of them have been turned down.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka