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Plea challenges Hindi names for 3 criminal laws, HC seeks govt reply
The plea challenged the names saying Hindi is not the mother tongue of 56.37% of Indians and only nine states and two union territories have hindi as official language
The Madras high court on Wednesday sought the Union government’s response to a petition challenging the Hindi names of the three new criminal laws, which came into effect on July 1.
The three new laws, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam have replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act.
A division bench of acting chief justice R Mahadevan and justice Mohammed Shaffiq, however, declined to stay the operation of the new laws.
The writ petition, filed by lawyer B Ramkumar Adityan, stated that while Hindi is not the mother tongue of 56.37% of Indians, Hindi and Sanskrit names have been given to important legislation. The lawyer further said that out of the 28 states and eight Union territories in India, only nine states and two Union territories have Hindi as their official language.
He pointed out that Article 348(1)(a) of the Constitution of India mandates that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and the high courts should be conducted in English.
Additional solicitor general ARL Sundaresan, appearing for the Union government, submitted before the court that English alphabets have been used in nomenclature of Hindi names and it is the will of Parliament.
“People will get used to these names eventually. It is a matter of time. But these names do not breach any constitutional rights or citizens’ fundamental rights,” the top law official was quoted as saying by Bar and Bench. “These names are not in violation of Article 348.”
The petitioner said that he filed the writ in the interest of law students, law teachers, advocates, law officers, judicial officers, and the common public, who are not familiar with the Hindi and Sanskrit languages.
Adityan further sought to strike down the new legislations on several grounds including, “That the nomenclature in Hindi will lead a lot of practical problems in Tamil Nadu as most of the Judges, Advocates are not conversant with the Hindi Language, and enforcing propagation of an unknown language on a large section of the Population may disturb the common fabric of India and may result in social disturbances as well as law and order problems.”
