State government appeals against earlier high court ruling in favour of English script, court says decision will be taken after Supreme Court issues verdict on language policy
The state government has challenged a recent High Court order allowing Al Iman Social and Rural Education Trust, which runs a school in Murudeshwar, Bhatkal, to use English script for Nawayath language spoken by a minority community in Uttara Kannada district. The trust maintained that it wanted to use English script to teach the students because the language does not have a script of its own. However, it is learnt that the Nawayaths use Persian script to write their language. People of the community are also found in smaller numbers in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh and they also use Persian script to write the language. Another minority community, Beary of the undivided Dakshina Kannada, however, use Kannada script for the traditional language spoken by them. The state government’s appeal was heard by the division bench comprising chief justice J S Khehar and justice Ashok B Hinchigeri last week. The counsel for the trust stressed that the language does not have a script of its own and the single judge bench had upheld this contention. The government counsel, Veerappa, said languages spoken in Karnataka like Tulu and Kodava, which did not have their own script, used Kannada script for writing. He said that Nawayath also used the Kannada script. However, both the sides could not prove their contentions. SC WILL DECIDE After hearing both sides, the court observed that since the problem arose out of the new language policy of the state government, which itself has been challenged in the Supreme Court, the outcome of that case will decide this one as well. The Language Policy 2009 of the Karnataka government makes it mandatory that the medium of instruction in primary classes is Kannada or the mother tongue of the student. Advocate K V Dhananjay, who is representing the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA) which got the language policy struck down by the apex court, said, “The Supreme Court has maintained that the state cannot close any unrecognised English medium schools. The last time the case came up for hearing was in April 2010. Unless the state has any other contention, like shortage of infrastructure, it cannot stop Nawayath school from using English script for the language. They do not even need to convince anyone why they want English medium. It is their prerogative to choose the medium of instruction.” source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / by S. Shyam Prasad / August 16th, 2011 |
