Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Friday denied a request to designate Sanskrit as the official language of India.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari dismissed the petition on the grounds that designating a language as “national” is a policy choice that requires a Constitutional amendment and is not required by the court.
The bench declared, “This is a matter of policy, and even in the case of the aforementioned, the Indian Constitution needs to be altered. A language cannot be declared a national language by writ to Parliament.
“In how many Indian cities is Sanskrit spoken? Have you learned Sanskrit? The bench questioned the petitioner, “Can you recite one line in Sanskrit or at least translate the prayer in your writ petition to Sanskrit.
The petitioner may be free to present such a case to the government, the top court said in rejecting the argument.
The PIL was filed by retired IAS officer and lawyer KG Vanzara.
According to the petition, notifying Sanskrit as the nation’s official language will not clash with the current provisions of the Constitution that name English and Hindi as the country’s official languages.