Front Page

High Court gives State three days to comply with order on language policy

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Friday took the State Government to task for not complying with its order on the language policy for primary schools and gave an opportunity to the State till Wednesday to implement it.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice N. Kumar and Justice Sreenivase Gowda, passed the order on a writ appeal by the Government against a single judge order directing it to consider applications by institutions to start schools in English. Several schools, which had been refused permission to start English-medium schools, had filed contempt petitions and these were listed along with the writ appeal. When the matter came up before the Bench, the judges noted that the Full Bench of the High Court had, on July 2, 2008, said that children and their parents had the right to choose the medium of instruction in private unaided minority institutions. It had also said that the State could not compel children to learn through a particular medium of instruction.

The Bench said that though the Full Bench judgment was delivered a year ago, it had still not been implemented. Is the Government above the law and can it flout a court order, it asked the government advocate.

The Bench adjourned the case till Wednesday.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu