Hearing on the petition filed in the Supreme Court to declare Sanskrit as the national language. The court dismissed the petition and said that it is a policy decision, which requires amendment in the constitution. During the hearing of the PIL, the court also asked the petitioner to recite a line in Sanskrit.
The petition was filed in the apex court on behalf of retired bureaucrat DG Vanzara. He talked about the promotion of the language through the declaration of Sanskrit as the national language. On this, the bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice Krishna Murari said, ‘This policy comes within the purview of the decision. This would also require an amendment to the Constitution. No writ can be issued to Parliament to declare a language as the national language.
The bench asked, ‘Sanskrit is spoken in how many cities in India?’ Here, DG Vanzara says that he wants a discussion on this from the Center and an intervention from the court will be helpful in starting the discussion at the government level. The bench asked, ‘Do you speak Sanskrit? Can you speak a line in Sanskrit or translate the prayer of your writ petition into Sanskrit?’ To this the retired bureaucrat recited a verse and got the reply from the bench ‘We all know this’.
During the hearing, Vanzara referred to the statement of a former judge of the Supreme Court of Calcutta during the British Raj, in which he had said that one thing is clear among the 22 languages studied by him that Sanskrit is the mother tongue. At the same time, the court said, ‘We also agree to this point. We know that the words of Hindi and many other languages of the states have come from Sanskrit. But on the basis of this no language can be declared as the national language. It is very difficult for us to declare the language’.
Court said to go before the government
During the hearing, the petitioner referred to Article 32 and said that the apex court has scope in this regard and the discussion can be started after knowing the view of the Centre. To this, the court said that if the petitioners have a view to present the representation in this way, then they can be at liberty to approach the government regarding it.
