24 Class 10 students exempted from taking Tamil test

The division bench comprising Justice CT Selvam and Justice MV Muralidharan, on referring to an order of the High Court, which upheld the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act 2006 after holding that a student who is taught Tamil from Class 1 should not be over-burdened, said, “Taking into consideration the observations of this court in the decision above referred, we are of the view that requiring students, for whom exemption is sought, to take Tamil paper as a compulsory subject in the ensuing Class 10 examination would be unjustified.” 

The petitioner students submitted that when they were admitted to Class 6 in Shree GK Jain Higher Secondary School, they had undergone their primary education in Hindi. But along with this, till 2015, there were no Tamil teachers in the school and only in 2016, a Tamil teacher was appointed. The counsel Dakshayani Reddy appearing for the students also submitted that the school, being an aided school and Tamil teachers have been appointed only in 2016, the students ought to have been granted exemption as they are similarly placed like students migrating from other states and that their mother tongue is Hindi.