State secretary of CPI R Mutharasan and President of VCK Thol Thirumavalavan have approached the Madras High Court seeking to implead them in a case relating to implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.
Speaking about the case and his decision to implead, Mutharasan said, "The arguments of the petitioner in his affidavit are patently unlawful for the very simple reason that the Official Languages Act, 1963 cannot be enforced in Tamil Nadu. This is because the Official Language Rules, 1976, do not apply to Tamil Nadu, as seen from their Rule 1 (ii), which categorically declares that the said Rules 'shall extend to the whole of India, except the State of Tamil Nadu'."
He pointed out that the contents of the report given in the year 1955 by the State Reorganisation Commission, constituted by the Government of India in the year 1953, do have a strong bearing on the issues raised by the petitioner in the main writ petition and they are required to be examined to ensure that there is no scope for anyone to later raise any issue by invoking the doctrine of Sub Silentio. Thirumalavan, in his affidavit, alleged that the petitioner was distorting the facts and has described the attempts by the officials in the Department of Official Language of the Union Government to enforce Hindi as the official language in Tamil Nadu as "absolutely unlawful and mischievous".
Arjunan Elayaraja, Secretary of Aalamaram, an NGO based in Cuddalore, filed the original petition seeking to implement the NEP and mandating teaching of Hindi in government schools as well. When the petition came up for hearing before the first Bench, headed by Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari on Tuesday, April 19, Advocate General (AG) R Shunmugasundaram submitted that the state government has constituted a committee headed by retired Chief Justice of Delhi High Court C Murugesan for analysing the NEP and sought time for filing counter-affidavit. Subsequently, the Bench granted time till the first week of June for the state to file the counter affidavit.
