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Punjab & Haryana HC Issues Notice On Plea Challenging Mandatory Imposition Of Hindi Language As Official Court Language
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a notice on a plea filed against section 3-A of the Haryana Official Language Act, 1969, which provides for the use of Hindi language as an official language in both civil and criminal subordinate courts to the High Court in Haryana. It is also applicable to tribunals and other courts across the state of Haryana.
The notice was issued by a bench comprising Justice Rajan Gupta and Karamjit Singh on a plea filed by Advocates Sameer Jain, Sandeep Bajaj, Angad Sandhu, Suvigya Awasthi, and Anant Gupta. The petitioners submitted that the said provision is arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminating sand hence unconstitutional. They contended that the provision creates an unreasonable barrier between those who speak Hindi and those who do not. It limits the reach of justice to non-Hindi speaking citizens and put an unreasonable constraint on advocates who are not well-versed with Hindi. This constraint on advocates violates Article 19(1)(g) as it puts Hindi speaking advocates on the forefront and restricts non-Hindi speaking advocates from practicing before the court. The petitioners also submitted that the objective of the law which is to promote Hindi as an official language, cannot be achieved with “the exclusion of the use of other languages which have been customarily used in litigation”, as this would have a “pernicious effect” on litigants, lawyers, and judges in Haryana who are not well-versed with Hindi. The petitioner also submitted that the section also talks about the training of court-staff and officials in the use of Hindi as an official language but no such training was provided to the advocates.
The petitioners also highlighted the fact that the proceedings in the High Court and Supreme Court take place only in English so the advocates and litigants will have to bear the charges of translating the proceedings in English, which further hampers access to justice.
