BANGALORE: The state government has decided to challenge the Supreme Court order quashing the government directive imposing Kannada as the compulsory medium of instruction in primary schools in the state.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra held discussions on this matter with several legal experts, including former Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde and Advocate General Ravivarma Kumar.
After the meeting, Siddaramaiah told reporters, “We will file a review petition in the Supreme Court before June 5.” He also promised to reach out to his counterparts in other states to enlist their support over the issue.
A curative petition will be filed if the court rejects the review petition, Siddaramaiah added.
But the Chief Minister ruled out the possibility of bringing an amendment to the Right to Information (RTI) Act to promote the local language as the compulsory medium of instruction for primary education. But if no agreement is reached, a Constitutional amendment is the only option to nullify the Supreme Court order.
Efforts will be made in the coming days to evolve a consensus on this with various states, Siddaramaiah said.
A legal expert who attended the meeting told Express that other states too can become impleaders on the issue. The reorganisation of states was done on linguistic basis and respective local languages should get prominence in education. “The apex court’s order is equivalent to a death warrant for regional languages,” he said.