- (1.) O. P. Garg, J. A question of far reaching importance is involved in these writ petitions as to whether the employees on the establishment of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad can be debarred from writing their answers in Hindi in the departmental promotional examinations. It sound ridiculous that after lapse of half of the century of the commencement of the Constitution of India, the officials of the High Court, which is located in the Hindi speaking bell, are being compelled to write their answers in departmental ex amination in English only. For the better appreciation of the controversy in hand, the background in which the present writ petition have come up before this Court may be come up before this Court may be narrated. The employees who are recruited to the establishment of this Court are governed by the provisions of Allahabad High Court Officers and Staff ('conditions of S0rvice and Conduct) Rules, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as "the Rules" ). The promotional avenues arc available to the Lower Division Assistants (for short "ldas") who are initially recruited as Routine Grade Clerks (for short "rgcs" ). There is a promotional post of Bench Secretary Grade II. All those LDAs who have put in ten years continuous service in class III cadre are eligible to appear in the departmental ex amination. By Office Memorandum dated 24-11-1998, applications were invited from the eligible candidates upto 10-12-1998 and the departmental examination was to take place oft 9-1-1999. There was not even a faint suggestion in the Office Memorandum that the candidates who are desirous to take up the proposed examina tion have to write their answers to the various questions only in English lan guage. The rules are also silent on the point. They were surprised to know by seeing the examination paper to which a note was appended that answers are re quired to be given in English language only. This compulsion to write in English had irked the various members of the es tablishment of this Court in general, and the petitioners, in particular. In the present writ petition, the condition thai the answers are to be Written in English language only has been challenged as ar bitrary, illegal and against the specific provisions of the Constitution and the laws made thereunder. It is prayed that since the petitioners were deprived of their legitimate right to write answers in Hindi in an arbitrary' manner, the entire examination, which had taken place on 94-1999, be quashed as it stood vitiated. According to the petitioners, examination may be directed to be held again and the respondents be commanded not to compel the petitioners to write answers in English language only. On behalf of the respon dents, it has been maintained that in view of the provisions of Article 348 of the Constitution of India, the language of the Court is English and since on the repre sentation of the Employees Association, the committee of two Hon'ble Judges has taken the decision that in view of the duties which are to be performed by the Bench Secretaries knowledge of English language is necessary and, therefore, the condition that the examinees shall answer the question in English language only is not arbitrary, illegal or unwarranted.
(2.) HEARD Sri D. S. Misra as well as Sri V. C. Misra, learned Counsel for the petitioners in the two writ petitions and Sri Sunil Ambwani, appearing on behalf of the High Court and other respondents, as well as learned Standing Counsel on be half of the Slate of U. P. The core question which surfaces in the present two writ petitions for deter mination and consideration is whether the employees of this Court, who appeared for promotion to the post of Bench Secretary Grade II, could be compelled to answer their questions in English language only or they can elect to write the answers in Hindi as per their choice and convenience. The controversy, therefore, boils down to this whether Hindi can be totally excluded in answering the question in the departmental examination for promotion to the post of Bench Secretary Grade II. This will require scrutiny of the various Constitutional provisions regarding the use of Hindi. Parl XVII of the Constitu tion contains provisions with regard to the official language. In view of Article 343,hindi in Devnagari script is the official language of the Union of India, but the form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the inter national form of Indian numerals. How ever, use of English was made permissible for a period of 15 years from the commen cement of the Constitution for all official purposes of the Union. It was a flexible limit for. Parliament could extend it. Hindi has not only been given pride of place in our Constitution but is also the State language of Uttar Pradesh as well as some other States in India. There can be no question of any rivalry between Hindi and English. Hindi necessarily oc cupies the dominant position in such States. In the mid-September this year, Hindi has completed half a century of recognition as the official language of India. The irony is that the year, in fact, means the Golden Jubilee of its failure to become the official language. The failure is much more discernible in the cow-belt where the Hindi is derisively described as lingua franca.
(3.) THE Constitution and the Official Languages Act both give Hindi the status of the official language. However, in reality this has not come about due to a variety of factors including the absence of political will, the eluding consensus in favour of Hindi and the stubborn unwill ingness of the system of governance to abide by the democratic character and the statutes. THE elite believes that India can be governed, held together and moder nised only through English, a language known to not more than five per cent of the people of India. It has even succeeded in having politics, media and other sectors accept this, anomaly without any question. THE Governments, both at the Cerhre and in the States, had by and large, ignored the issue of language. Not only that, Hindi has hardly become the official language even of the Hindi speaking States, by the same token the other Indian languages have also not attained the proper and true statutes of official languages in their respective States. THEre would be very few languages in the world to have traversed such a vast range in so short a lime. THE scintillating vision of a Nirala, the Prem-chandian grasp of ordinary life, the sophis tication of an Agyaeya, the rooledness of a Renu, the classical sweep of Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, the moral fibre of Jainendra Kumar the horrific agonies of a Muk-tiboth the passion and sensuousness of a Shamsher, the relentless questioning of the power discourse by a Raghuvir Sahay, the epical geography of the fictions of a Krishna Sobti, the anger of a Shrikant Verma, the quiet ironies of a Vinod Kumar Shukla etc. are but a few examples of the very wide human, moral and intellectual range covered by Hindi during this period. It would be apposite to mention the following words of Pt. Jawahar Lai Nehru about the magnificence of Sanskrit language, published in an article cap-tioned as "the Question of Language" published in National Hearld dated 13-12-1949: "though I am not a scholar in any lan guage, I have loved the beauty of a language, the music of its phrases, and the magic and power that lie in words. . . . . If I was asked what is the greatest treasure that India possesses, and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Sanskrit language and literature. This is a Magnificent inheritance, and so long as this en dures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. Apart form its beinga treasure of the past. . . . . . it is a living tradition. " The above observations would apply with equal force to Hindi which has been termed as beauteous daughter of Sanskrit. In the decision of the apex Court dated 4-10-1994 in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 1184 of 1989 UP. Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and others v. Ministry of Human Resources Development and another, the Court was faced with a question whether Sanskrit is required to be included in the syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Educa tion as an elective subject so far as teach ing in Secondary Schools is concerned. The apex Court observed that the learning of Sanskrit was must to decipher the In dian philosophy on which our culture and heritage was based. The Court concluded the matter, by saying that in view of impor tance of Sanskrit for nurturing our cul tural heritage, because of which even offi cial educational policy has highlighted the need of study of Sanskrit, making of Sanskrit alone as an elective subject, while not conceding this status to Arabic and/or Persian would not, in any way, militate against the basic tenet of secularism. A direction was issued 10 include Sanskrit as an elective subject in the syllabus under consideration.;