A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Delhi High Court, seeking directions for the Delhi University to conduct entrance examinations for its law course in Hindi.
A notice has also been issued to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Law and Justice, Bar Council of India, Delhi University and its Law Faculty. The notice poses a request to file their counter-affidavits on the issue within a span of three weeks.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar of the Delhi High Court on Tuesday, 10th April, 2018, said that, “You have brought before this court a very important issue. We are issuing a notice to the Centre and other parties concerned. They will have to file their response on the issue.” (Translated from Hindi)
The issue was listed for further hearing on 17th May, 2018 by the court.
Ayush Tiwari, the 20-year-old petitioner, is a final-year BA student from Allahabad. He was representing his case in person in front of the High Court.
He mentioned in his plea filed through advocate Kamlesh Kumar Mishra, that he is “desirous of studying law, however, since he has got all his education in Hindi medium, it would be unfair for him to take the entrance exam in English when on the contrary DU Law Faculty allows term examination of LLB to be taken in Hindi.”
He was told to read up on the judgment passed by the court on a similar issue in 2014. The plea then, had proposed to conduct the entrance examination for LLB in Hindi, similar to the Union Public Service Commission and certain other central universities.
The High Court bench had rejected the plea on the basis that, “We cannot shut our eyes also to the fact that the language of the courts, particularly in Delhi, primarily remains English and the judgments of the courts are pronounced and reported in the English language.”
The language was also deemed necessary in order to accommodate effective communication wherein judges of the High Court and of the Chief Justice were transferred from courts of other states, who may or may not be conversant in Hindi.