HC rejects PIL on CBSE 'Sanskrit week' celebration circular

Madras High Court today dismissed a petition seeking to declare a CBSE circular to observe 'Sanskrit week' as unconstitutional, null and void.
The First bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M Sathyanarayanan dismissed the PIL filed by one P Pugalenthi, an advocate and said it found no merit in the contention.
The bench said it appeared an attempt was made to misconstrue provisions of the circular, the endeavour of which appears to be to encourage one of the languages i.E Sanskrit, in a particular week.
But it does not take away the endeavour to encourage other languages over a period of time, nor in any way dilute use or richness of Tamil language, the bench observed.

"In our view, this is an experiment being carried out by CBSE to find out if Sanskrit language can be encouraged by such a methodology and shutting out even an experiment from being carried out by a specialised Board, with the intervention of judicial proceedings, may not be appropriate. We are thus not inclined to entertain this PIL," the Justices said and dismissed the PIL.
CBSE had issued a communication on June 30 to all heads of school affiliated to CBSE to celebrate 'Sanskrit Week'.

The petitioner alleged that the communication was based on a 'false premise' that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages and at the stake of imposition of a false propaganda as to a particular language.

He also alleged that Sanskrit, which figures at entry 17 in Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, is one of 22 languages included in it and has no special status whatsoever under the Constitution.
The petitioner alleged the essence of this communication "was nothing but imposition of Sanskrit in the young minds of children by means of inculcation of a false notion that learning Sanskrit would enable the students to learn other languages easily."
Pugalenthi also alleged that the language, spoken only by about 14,000 people in the country, cannot be promoted at the cost of the public exchequer, which is violative of Article 14 of the constitution.

Hence he sought to declare the above circular as unconstitutional, null and void.