A Supreme Court advocate on Tuesday invoked Lord Macaulay to tell the court that English was a relic of Raj days so an amendment must be brought in the Constitution to make Hindi the official language for court proceedings in higher judiciary.
A bench of Justices H L Dattu and S A Bobde issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed by advocate Shiv Sagar Tiwari, who urged for amending Article 348 of the Constitution which stated that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and all the high courts should be done in English.
The petitioner claimed that using English as an official language in higher judiciary was a legacy of British rule which should be done away with. He termed the termed the language as “ghulami bhasha”.
“Time has now come that language of the Supreme Court should be ‘rashtra bhasha’ defined under Article 343 of the Constitution and it has to be amended,” the petition said.
Published 19 August 2014, 19:09 IST