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Supreme Court Refuses to Stay 's Three-Language Policy Pending Detailed Review of Infrastructure Readiness
The
has declined to grant an
on the
’s (
) new three-language policy, steering a middle path between promoting national educational reforms and addressing immediate practical concerns. The bench, led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, alongside Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, emphasized that
"learning a language never goes waste,"
while ordering the
,
, and
to respond to grievances regarding the policy's implementation within ten days.
The Conflict: Meets the Classroom The dispute stems from the 's directive issued on , which mandates a three-language formula for students in Class 9, requiring that at least two of the selected languages be "Bhartiya Bhashas" (native Indian languages). While the policy aims to foster cultural rootedness and linguistic diversity, it triggered a wave of from parents and who argue that the sudden rollout leaves both students and schools unprepared.
have alleged that the policy effectively demotes English to a "non-native" status and imposes an undue academic burden on students who have studied other language combinations for years. Concerns were also raised regarding the scarcity of trained educators capable of teaching, for instance, Punjabi or Tamil in schools where those infrastructures simply do not exist.
Arguments from the Bar Senior advocates representing the , including and , argued that the circulars lacked the requisite and that the infrastructural reality—specifically the limited availability of textbooks on the website—did not support an immediate transition.
"Children are being told to drop English and other foreign languages and take up native languages. They had said that by
textbooks would be ready,"
argued Sankaranarayanan.
