HC rejects PIL against exclusion of Arabic, Persian as papers

The Delhi High Court today refused to entertain a PIL seeking quashing of a UPSC notification by which Arabic and Persian languages were excluded from the list of optional subjects for the main Civil Services Examinations.
"How this issue falls under the public interest? They all are IAS aspirants and they can come forward to file a case," a bench, comprising Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, said.
"Do you (petitioner) want us to stall the entire selection process? We are satisfied with UPSC's response," the court said while dismissing the PIL filed by Delhi-based lawyer Shahid Ali on the issue.

The PIL had sought quashing of "March 5, 13 notification, published by UPSC in the gazette on March 6, whereby UPSC excluded Arabic and Persian from the list of optional subjects mentioned in group 2 'literature of languages' from the main examination of civil services conducted by UPSC."
It had also sought a direction to UPSC that Arabic and Persian be included "again in the list of subjects mentioned in group 2 'literature of languages' of the main examination of civil services conducted by UPSC."
The plea referred to the response of UPSC given to Ali's earlier representation and said it was the Congress-led UPA-II which had decided to exclude the languages, opted by the religious minority in Civil Services exams, from the list of optional subjects on the ground that they did not fall under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

"On the one hand, the government claims, propagates and even recommends to include students of Madarsas and of minorities in the mainstream, but on the other hand have excluded these two languages, which shall result in creating complete deprivation of students having Arabic and Persian background from being included in mainstream," the plea said.