Relief for non-Tamil students in Class 10 Boards

The First Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice R Mahadevan granted the exemption after hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PIL) from the Linguistic Minority Institutions. The bench, on directing the Government to extend the order passed by it on March 14, 2016 this year, also directed the authorities to complete the process within two days as the examination is scheduled to begin in March. 

The pleas had sought the Court to direct the State School Education Department officials to exempt the students, from other States and having different mother tongues, from writing Tamil language exam and instead, write the exam in their respective mother tongues. 

Senior Counsel Prabhakaran submitted that even though the act had come into force in 2014, till date no rules have been framed for the implementation of the same. He also claimed that the Government is still unclear in its stand with regard to the implementation of the Act. Failure to grant exemption would result in students being pushed to severe hardship, he added. 

Senior Counsel M Ravindran arguing on similar lines, said even though the Act of Compulsory Tamil was enacted in 2006 it was brought into force only in 2014. But till date, the Government is yet to appoint Tamil Teachers in several schools for teaching the language in the first place, he said.