The use of Hindi language in court proceedings is not prohibited by law, and the prescribed authority must consider whether a dispute has become infructuous.

Heard learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri Yogish Saxena and Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Counsel for the respondent No. 4 and the learned Standing Counsel for the respondent Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Supplementary affidavit filed today is taken on record.

2. The petitioner questions the legality of the order passed by the prescribed authority dated 3rd of October, 2012 under the provisions of Section 25 of the Societies Registration Act, 1860 whereby he has declared the respondent no. 4 to be a valid committee with Kuldeep Gangwar as the validly elected Manager of the Society.

3. Sri Yogish Saxena contends that writ petitions are not being accepted by the Registry on account of annexures being in Hindi filed alongwith the writ petitions. This issue has already been dealt with by this Court in writ petition no. 54488 of 2012 Smt. Rajeshwari Vs. State of U.P. & others, and the order dated 16.10.2012 passed therein will apply on the facts of the present case.

4. Apart from this, the Court would like to put on record that the genesis of such disputes with regard to the applicability of the vernacular language in court proceedings has been engaging the attention of this Court not only as observed in the order passed by me in Smt. Rajeshwari's case (supra) yesterday, but also in relation to the accessibility of Hindi language on a national level. Article 351 of the Constitution of India reads as under:-

351. Directive for development of the Hindi language. - It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages."

5. The aforesaid issue was raised on several occasions and in the case of Madhu Limaye and another Vs. Ved Murti and others reported in AIR 1971 SC Pg.2608 an Intervention application was filed by one Mr. Raj Narain contending that he should be allowed to address the apex court in his vernacular language Hindi. The Supreme Court under its rules and keeping in view the provisions of Article 348 of the Constitution of India offered three alternatives to the intervenor namely that he can himself argue in English or his counsel may argue his case in English or he can file written arguments in English. Since the intervenor failed to abide by the offers of the apex court, his intervention application was accordingly rejected. Suffice it to say that there was a provision in relation to the court language of the apex court.

6. So far as the States are concerned sub-Article (2) of Article 348 of the Constitution of India clearly empowers the State Government to issue notifications in this regard. This issue has already been discussed by me in the order passed yesterday in the case of Smt. Rajeshwari (supra) but the Court has also been able to lay its hand on the full bench judgment of the Bombay High Court in in writ petition no. 6597 of 2007 Vinayak Hari Kulkarni Vs. State of Maharashtra and others, and Thane Bar Association, Thane and another Vs. State of Maharashtra decided on 7.5.2010 that stands reported in 2010 (4) All MR 355 = 2010 (4) MAH.L.J. 868 which was a dispute rendered on a reference made by a division bench on account of a rule under the Bombay High Court Rules providing for the acceptance of writ petitions with annexures in vernacular language Marathi. The said rule was struck down by a division bench and therefore the occasion for reference arose before the Full Bench. The majority opinion of two Judges of the full bench found that not entertaining a writ petition in Marathi would be too harsh for the litigants of Maharashtra and they opined as