Apex court’s notice to Centre on a plea seeking conduct of court proceedings in Hindi

August 20, 2014

Responding to a PIL seeking the Supreme Court’s direction to the government to amend the Constitution for making Hindi official language for conducting court proceedings, the apex court has issued a notice to the Centre on the matter. The court has sought response from the Centre for amending Article 348 of the Constitution which holds that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and all the high courts shall be conducted in English. The PIL filed by Shiv Sagar Tiwari, a lawyer, says that using English as an official language in higher judiciary is a legacy of British rule which should be eliminated. He termed the termed the language as “Gulami Bhasha”. It demands that the language of the Supreme Court should be ‘rashtra bhasha’ as defined under Article 343 of the Constitution.