Constitutionality of the Official Languages Act, 1963.

S. Mohan, J.

1. This writ petition has been preferred as a public cause litigation. The petitioner in his affidavit states that he is a citizen of India by birth. He knows only English and Tamil and no other language. He is an Advocate by profession practising in the High Court of Madras. As, a responsible citizen of the country and to discharge his fundamental duty enshrined in Article 51-A of the Constitution, he is filing this writ petition for a declaration that the Official Languages Act of 1963 is unconstitutional to the extent it authorises the use of regional Hindi as found in Schedule VII as one of the Official languages by its vague definition of Hindi under Section 3 instead of authorising the Hindi of All India character as per the requirement of Article 351 of the Constitution for the purpose of official use of the right type of Hindi as mentioned in Article 343(1) of the Constitution. The Constitution of India has given a special directive under Article 351 as to how to develop, promote and spread Hindi so as to serve as a common medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India. In spite of this special directive, Hindi language had not been developed by assimilation of different languages; nor was it developed by drawing words from other languages. According to the petitioner, today's Hindi used by the Union of India is called 'Kariboli' Hindi. It is this dialect which was arbitrarily chosen by the Union of Hindi among other forms of dialects that are written in Devanagiri script.

2. It is this kind of regional Hindi's development and progress that was made the subject of scrutiny by the Official Language Commission that was appointed on 7.6.1955. It is a pity that not even a work was mentioned in the terms of reference to the Commission to find out to what extent or degree, the regional character of Hindi had taken place before ever it was found suitable for its use at, All India level as per the guidelines laid down in Article 351 of the Constitution.

3. Article 343(3) empowers the Parliament, by law, to continue the use of English language alone for all the official uses as it was used before and after the commencement of the Constitution during the first 15 year time-limit. English continues even after the expiry of 15 years. Therefore, it is submitted that the introduction of continued bilinguism of undeveloped Hindi language of regional character and the continued use of English language beyond the Constitution time - limit of 15 years linguistic change over by the enactment of the Official Languages Act of 1963 with a vague definition of Hindi in Section 3(b) of the Act is unconstitutional.

4. The passing of the Official Languages Act of 1963 was for the purpose of replacing English. The word 'may' used with reference to the continuous use of English under Section 3 also give ample discretion to the Union of India whether to use English for all the purposes of the official use or the Union or not in addition to Hindi on a future date. This has resulted in a great feeling of uncertainty and insecurity among the non-Hindi speaking people.

5. The petitioner in his affidavit would aver that the enforcement of the Official Languages Act would be a real threat to National unity. After averring so, he traces the history of socio-political condition in the context of the Indian Constitution. Ultimately in Article 343(1) it came to be laid down that the official language of Union shall be Hindi in Devanagiri script. The word 'shall' thereon, on a proper interpretation, would mean that it is used in a directory sense. The farmers of the Constitution had made a provision under Article 343(3) in tune with its main policy of mono-linguism for official language to provide for a law to be made for the continuous use of English notwithstanding anything contained in Article 343 only to meet a situation if Hindi is not fully developed as envisaged in Article 351. This only shows that they had the