The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to examine the plea by Andhra Pradesh state government’s decision to make English the medium of instruction in government-run schools instead of Telugu, a plea which was earlier ruled in favour of the petitioner Srinivas Guntipalli by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. It was in this regard that the state government went to the apex court to file an appeal.
Appearing for the state government, Senior Counsel K V Vishwanathan, told the Supreme Court today via the hearing conducted through video conferencing that this decision was a progressive and a forward-looking decision and also argued that according to a survey, the majority of the parents were in favour of the Government schools imparting education in the English language. He also said that this was for the benefit of the students and is in accordance with the constitution.
Senior Counsel Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for a caveator, said that choice of the parents to send their children to Telugu medium school is taken away.
“The state has taken away the choice of Telugu speaking parents to send the child to a Telugu school. Minority schools and private schools can teach both languages, but government schools will only teaching in English,” said Sankaranarayanan.
The bench led by Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and K M Joseph also observed that under Section 29(2)(f) of the RTE Act which calls for the medium of instruction to be in the mother tongue of a child “as far as practicable.” The Supreme Court has issued a notice on the plea and has declined to stay the High Court order. The Court will hear the case next on September 25.
