Aurangabad, Sept 1:
The Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justice Ravindra Ghughe and Justice Arun Pednekar has directed the state government to frame a policy on conducting every competitive exam in Marathi through the Directorate of Languages, in future. The bench has also ordered to submit an affidavit in this regard till the next hearing (on October 3). The high court also instructed the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) to seek consultation with the state government in this regard.
It may be noted that the petitioner Mangesh Mahadev Bedre filed a petition through P I Sabde and Adv Krishna Rodge. Bedre has done his B.Sc (Agriculture) from an open university. He stated that the course was in the Marathi language in the university, but the same syllabus is in the English language in other agriculture universities in Maharashtra.
The petitioner underlined that both the universities (open or the others) have been awarded equal status. Hence, he pin-pointed that the parameters for the recruitment should also be the same for the graduate candidate. While filling out the MPSC’s preliminary examination form for various technical posts in the agriculture department, there was an option of selecting the language of the medium. However, the same option was not there in the filing forms for the Mains examination. Hence the court sought details in this regard from the state government and the MPSC.
MPSC submitted an affidavit in the high court stating that its responsibility is of planning the examination, therefore, it does not see the details like how should be the question paper, what sort of syllabus should be there, and in what language the exam should be conducted etc. It is the responsibility of the agriculture university. Hence when the MPSC contacted the concerned machinery stating whether it could provide a question paper in Marathi, it showed an inability underlining the language of the syllabus is purely scientific.
Hence the bench gave the above verdict to the state government directing it to explore the possibility of conducting every competitive exam in Marathi through the director of languages, in future and also providing an option (of selecting the Marathi language) to the state’s vernacular language practitioners. Hence government has been ordered to take initiative in framing the policy.
The decision on converting the petition into PIL will be taken on October 3 (next hearing), it is learnt. Adv A Kale pleaded on behalf of the government.