NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Centre and the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) for having a compulsory common prayer in Hindi and Sanskrit.
The notice came on a plea claiming that all students of the Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV), irrespective of their faith and belief, have to compulsorily recite a prayer based on the Hindu religion at the morning assembly.
KVs are a system of Central government schools in India that function under the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the KVS has about 1,125 schools, ensuring a uniform curriculum and syllabus all over India.
A Bench of Justices Rohinton F Nariman and Navin Sinha issued notices to the Centre and the KVS, seeking their replies in two weeks. “It’s an important issue,” observed the Bench as it admitted the PIL filed by Veenayak Shah.
The petition filed by Madhya Pradesh resident Shah said that prayer created obstacles in developing scientific temperament among students, as the whole idea of God and religious faith is given immense priority and instilled as a thought-process among the students.
The petition challenged the validity of Article 92 of the ‘Revised Education Code of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan’ which states, “The school day shall begin with the morning assembly and all students, teachers and the principal shall attend the assembly. All the teachers share the collective responsibility of supervising the assembly and making sure that every student folds his/her hands, closes his/her eyes and recites the prayer without fail. Any student failing to do so is punished and humiliated in front of the school”.
“Under Article 19 of the Constitution, the citizens have been guaranteed Freedom of Speech and expression and as a result the students should not be put under any compulsion to recite the prayer or even as to recite it in a particular manner by folding their hands and closing their eyes,” stated the plea.
Complaining that the prayer is being enforced throughout the country in all central schools, the petitioner said, “Students have a fundamental right to pray according to the practices of their religion or not pray at all.”
“As a result, parents and children of the minority communities as well as atheist and others, who do not agree with this system of prayer such as agnostics, rationalists and others would find the imposition of this prayer constitutionally impermissible,” the petition said.