Apex court halts contempt trial against Karnataka officials
July 14th, 2009 - 8:40 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, July 14 (IANS) The Supreme Court Tuesday temporarily halted contempt-of-court proceedings the Karnataka High Court has launched against several state officials for allegedly not permitting unaided minority schools in the state to teach primary class students in English.
The high court launched the contempt proceedings as the state government, in violation of the court’s July 2008 order, was goading the schools to follow the state’s language policy of 1989, which stipulated that Class I-IV students should be imparted education only in Kannada or their mother tongues.
An apex court bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan halted the contempt proceedings on an urgent plea by the state government.
Karnataka counsel Sanjay Hegde pointed out to the bench that the state government had already moved the apex court against the high court ruling, which exempted the unaided private minority schools from following the state’s language policy and allowed them to teach their primary section students in English.
Hegde said the apex court last week, without passing any interim order on the state government’s appeal and without suspending the high court’s order, slated it for hearing July 21.
But the high court, meanwhile, has launched the contempt proceedings against the state officials rather vigorously and has issued summons to them for Aug 16.
Acceding to Hegde’s plea, the apex court bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan, halted the contempt trial of officials till July 24.
The bench said it would take a call July 21 on whether to suspend the high court order till disposal of the state government’s appeal.
A full bench of the high court, comprising of all its judges, had July 2 last year ruled that the state cannot compel private unaided minority schools to teach their primary section students only in Kannada or their mother tongues. It said children and parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction.
The state officials against whom the high court launched the contempt proceedings include Principal Secretary (Primary and Secondary Education) R.G. Nadadur, Commissioner for Public Instruction G. Kumara Naik, Director of Public Instruction Mir Obedulla and Deputy Director of Public Instruction, Bangalore North, Chandrappa.
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Tags: apex, apex court, chief justice, children and parents, class students, contempt of court, contempt proceedings, court bench, court proceedings, k g balakrishnan, karnataka high court, language policy, minority schools, mother tongues, sanjay, section students, state government, state officials, summons, urgent plea