Gujarat High Court dismisses PIL to make Gujarati an additional language in courts

The Gujarat High Court Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking directions to allow use of Gujarati as an additional language in courts in the State [Rohit Jayantilal Patel vs State of Gujarat]..A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee said that the petition was "wholly misconceived" as it sought to assail a December 2012 decision of the Supreme Court's full court refusing permission to use Gujarati as an additional language in courts. "The issue, if any, can be raised by the petitioner, would not fall within the realm of jurisdiction of this court. The only remedy available for the petitioner is before the Supreme Court. Therefore, the petition is dismissed since it is misconceived," Chief Justice Agarwal said..The PIL was filed by one Rohit Patel seeking a directive to the State government to implement the authorisation granted by the Governor of the State to make Gujarati an additional language in court proceedings.Senior Advocate Asim Pandya, appearing for the petitioner, pointed out that the State Legislative Assembly had passed a resolution to make Gujarati an additional language in courts."This resolution passed by the Assembly members was forwarded to the Governor through state council of ministers. Thus, it is a will of the people of the State and also of India," Pandya pointed out.Pandya argued that since India is a democratic country and since the authorisation was passed by the Governor within the framework of the Constitution of India, there is no role to be played by the Supreme Court or the High Court, even on administrative side.Pandya batted for the use of "mother tongue," and said that the bench need not consider the decision of the full court of the apex court, communicated to the High Court by a letter of written by then Chief Justice of India on December 16, 2012.However, the High Court refused to entertain the plea and advised the petitioner to move the top court and challenge the full court decision of December 2012..During an earlier hearing held in November 2022, the High Court bench led by the then Chief Justice Aravind Kumar had observed that allowing Gujarati to be a language of the court proceedings would have a large scale effect.