New Delhi : The Supreme Court Tuesday said that there would be no exams in Sanskrit for class 6 to 8 students in the Kendriya Vidyalayas in the current academic session and this would not come in their way for appearing in class 10 secondary exams at the later stage.
A bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Arun Mishra said this after it was told the Central Board of Secondary Education has written to Kendriya Vidyalayas Sangthan that the non-appearance of these students for the third compulsory language in the current academic year would not come in their way for appearing in board examinations.
The CBSE in its communication to Kendriya Vidyalayas Sangthan has said that it will not insist on these students for the three year third compulsory language examination for appearing in class 10 board examination.
The court said that there would be no examination or assessment for Sanskrit in the ongoing academic session.
The said communication that was placed before the court by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi addressed the objection raised by the parents of Kendriya Vidyalayas students who had contended that the government decision conflicted with the CBSE curriculum which says that clearing the test in third language is compulsory.
In the last hearing of the matter Dec 8, lawyer Reema Singh confronted the government with the CBSE curriculum which says that “No student shall be eligible to appear at the Secondary School Examination of the Board at the end of class 10 unless he/she has cleared the third language.”
She had appeared for 22 parents of the aggrieved students who had challenged the stitch ovewr from German to Sanskrit in the mid-session.
In other directions passed Tuesday, the court said that German would continue to be taught as an optional language and the government would provide all the facilities for its teaching in Kendriya Vidyalayas. The court said that there would be exams for German language.
German was introduced as a third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas following the signing of MoU between the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangthan and the Goethe Institute of Max Mueller Bhavan in 2011 for the training of the teachers for teaching German. The agreement that was for three years ended in 2014.
The Narendra Modi government, while introducing Sanskrit as third language, has taken a position that MoU was illegal and was in violation of constitutional provisions.
The government decision of switch over affected 70,000 students who were studying German.
The court in the earlier hearings of the matter was told by the government that under the constitution, the three language formula says that besides English and Hindi, students have to learn a regional language as a third language.