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On April 6, the Karnataka High Court (HC) issued an order to the State government and the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to respond in four weeks to the applications forwarded by unaided schools to begin instruction in English. The HC order was issued after a Bangalore-based private unaided school challenged the deputy directors of public instruction (DDPI) for rejecting the applications. Based on the HC order, more than 500 schools have already sent their applications to the jurisdictional DDPI seeking permission to teach in English. Ashwathnarayan, chairman, Shri Sharada Vidyalaya, said: "We had earlier submitted application to the DPI for English medium of instruction, but the department rejected it saying the case is pending in the Supreme Court. We have now submitted a fresh application and the DPI has to respond on the medium of instruction within four weeks as per the recent HC order. "We will abide by the HC order and begin teaching in English medium as the high court order states that the parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction. The State government and the education department have violated the HC order,"he said. The education department had rejected the applications of the private schools "as the case is pending in the Supreme Court". G S Sharma, president of Karnataka Unaided Schools Association Management (KUSMA), has also decided to go by the HC order. "The law of the land is greater than any order from the department. The full bench of the HC on July 2, 2008, had passed a fair judgment for the welfare of students and parents. The unaided schools will follow the HC order and will go ahead to teach in English medium," Sharma said. On the recent HC order, RN Nadadur, Principal Secretary for Primary Education, said: "We will have a discussion on the HC order with the officials from the law department. We had earlier issued an endorsement on the applications sent in by the applicants (unaided schools). However, the state government will go by its stand as per the SC judgment." On July 2, 2008, a bench of Chief Justice Joseph Cyriac, Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice N Kumar had termed the 1994 order unconstitutional and ruled that parents had the right to choose the language of instruction for their children.
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