Madras HC dismisses PIL against Sanskrit Week celebrations in CBSE schools.

published on August 2, 2014

A month after a controversy erupted over a circular asking CBSE-affiliated schools to conduct Sanskrit Week celebrations, the Madras high court on Wednesday declined to entertain a PIL on the issue.

Pointing out that the CBSE circular used the word ‘may’, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M Sathyanarayanan said: “It is an experiment being carried out by the CBSE to find out if the Sanskrit language can be encouraged by such methodology. Interference of judiciary probably may not be appropriate.”

The CBSE circular said: “In its endeavor to promote Sanskrit, the schools affiliated to CBSE may celebrate Sanskrit Week in an experiential manner by conducting activities connected to the real world. The objective of celebrating Sanskrit Week may be to provide an opportunity to schools, teachers and students to come out, share their knowledge of Sanskrit and learn it from each other. The celebration of this week would provide a medium for popularizing Sanskrit and stimulating interest in it by increasing awareness about the close relationship between Sanskrit and other languages and cultural heritage of India. The Sanskrit Week in schools may encourage linguistic creativity among students and to provide an opportunity to benefit from the systematic structure of Sanskrit language that may be transferred in giving insights into all language learning.”

The PIL of advocate P Pugalenthi said the director (academics, research, training and innovation) of the CBSE issued the “impugned circular on June 30 based on a false premise that Sanskrit was the mother of all languages”. Opposing it, Pugalenthi said the essence of the communication was nothing but imposition of Sanskrit in the young minds of children by means of inculcation of a false notion that learning Sanskrit would enable the students to learn other languages easily.

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