Bengaluru: In a major setback to the Karnataka government, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held that parents have a fundamental right to choose the medium of instruction of their children at the primary school stage under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
Hearing an appeal by the state government challenging the Karnataka High Court order striking down its order passed in 1994 that the medium of instruction should be mother tongue or Kannada from Class I to IV in all government-recognised schools, a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha, held that the state government has no power under Article 350A of the Constitution to compel the linguistic minorities to choose their mother tongue only as a medium of instruction in primary schools.
The court said, “Though the experts may be uniform in their opinion that children studying in classes I to IV in the primary school can learn better if they are taught in their mother tongue, the state cannot stipulate as a condition for recognition that the medium of instruction for children studying in classes I to IV in minority schools protected under the Constitution and in private unaided schools enjoying the right to carry on any occupation would be the mother tongue of the children as such stipulation.”
