Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice R M Joshi has issued orders to serve a notice to the Principal Secretary of the State and Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) after a petition filed to hold examinations in Marathi.
The petition was filed in the court for holding preliminary and main examinations of all competitive examinations through MPSC, including the agriculture department in Marathi medium.
In the preliminary hearing, the bench issued orders on Thursday to serve a notice to the Principal Secretary of the State and MPSC. The next hearing has been placed on April 18.
The petitioner also cited the news published in print media about making Marathi compulsory in all schools, otherwise, their affiliation would be withdrawn. Taking its notice, the court issued instructions to take the news items on record. It was also brought to the notice of the court that the chief justice of India made a statement about taking education in mother tongue.
“The students from rural areas are deprived of law education as CLAT is held in English for admissions in top law schools and universities of the country,” it was mentioned in the petition.
Mangesh Bendre who is an aspirant of the agriculture department examination to be conducted by MPSC filed a petition through adv Krishna Rodget. Bendre completed graduation from Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) in Marathi medium.
The MPSC published an advertisement for Agriculture Department posts in 2021. The MPSC holds the preliminary examination in Marathi while the medium for the main examination is English. So, he had filed the petition in 2022. The court, throught its orders dated August 22, 2022, had directed MPSC to decide the policy of conducting all the examinations in Marathi.
The join-secretary of the Government submitted an affidavit in the court stating that the 26 optional subjects and seven compulsory subjects of the Agriculture Department are taught in English.
The syllabus and books of the subjects are also available in English. The joint secretary had also sought information from the Department of Languages.
However, no action was taken on it. Therefore, a public interest litigation was filed. Assistant Government Pleader Pavan Lakhotiya appeared for the Government.