A Constitution Bench led headed by Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha held that a State Legislature’s power to declare a language in use in the State as official language is not curbed by Article 347 of the Constitution.
Passing its order on a petition by the U.P. Hindi Sahitya Sammelan against the 1989 amendment to the Uttar Pradesh Official Language Act, 1951, the Court held that Article 347 prescribes that a language can be made official upon the satisfaction of the President.
But the court interpreted that Articles 345 and 347 prescribe two different and independent processes for making a widely-used language in a State official, and both are not limited by the other.
The Bench held that there was no bar against a State Legislature declaring a language used in the State as an official language for the convenience of its citizens.
The Bench’s ruling focused on the question of law as to whether a State Legislature is precluded from adopting another language used in the State if Hindi has already been declared the official language.
Article 345 of the Constitution says “the Legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State”.
Chief Justice Lodha said the separate mention of “Hindi” in the Article was only meant to promote Hindi among the States.
“This cannot be taken to mean that the particular State Legislature must sacrifice its power in promoting other languages within the State. The purpose of using Hindi separately in Article 345 is to facilitate adoption of Hindi across the States whether or not Hindi is in use in a particular State,” the judgment said.
