The First Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday clarified that its interim order dated February 27, granting exemption to students of linguistic minority schools from taking compulsory Tamil language paper in the Class X board examinations for the current academic year, will apply only to the students who have sought such exemption.
Making it clear that the court cannot help the students or the institutions, who have not yet applied to the authorities concerned, seeking such exemption, the Bench of Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G. Ramesh and M. Sundar said, “We make it clear that the authorities would exercise discretion and consider the applications filed after February 27, in accordance with law and take a decision whether or not to grant exemption.”
The counsels for the minority institutions pleaded with the court to grant a blanket order exempting all the students, irrespective of whether or not they have made applications, seeking exemption from taking the Tamil language paper.
However, the Bench said, “The interim order passed on February 27 has taken adequate care of the anxieties and apprehensions that were expressed. Such apprehensions have also been put to rest as 2,939 students have already been granted exemption through the government order issued by the School Education Department dated March 3. No further interim order need to be passed in these petitions.”
Contempt of court
Noting that the validity of the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act-2006, which mandates taking Tamil language paper in the board examination, has already been upheld by the Supreme Court, the Bench added that any further dilution of the Act would amount to contempt of the Apex Court’s findings by this court.
The Bench then directed the registry to post the petitions in the usual course for further hearing.
In 2016, the High Court granted similar relief to over 4,000 students of such intuitions. .
Certain schools run by the Central government like Navodaya Vidyalaya, Sainik schools and Kendriya Vidyalayas were given exemption.
The government showed little interest in framing Rules to implement the Act and after six years after the Act came into force rules were framed.
Assailing the decision, over from 350 minority educational institutions, including Muslim educational institutions approached the high court for relief.
