Chennai: Plea to extend exemption to linguistic minority students for Class 10
Chennai: The Linguistic Minority Forum of Tamil Nadu (LIMFOT) has appealed to the Madras high court to expedite the case pertaining to the language issue and deliver a fair judgment directing the State government to allow the linguistic minority students to write their tenth standard examinations in their respective mother tongues.
Contending that the linguistic minority students in Tamil Nadu schools, numbering over one lakh, were denied an opportunity to learn their mother tongue under the Tamil Learning act, 2006, which came into force from 2016, LIMFOT Chairman Dr. C. M. K. Reddy, said the students obtained exemption and continued to study and write tenth standard examinations in their mother tongue in 2016, 2017 and 2018 as per the orders of the Madras High Court.
Last year, then Chief Justice Justice Indira Banerjee issued orders to form a three-member judicial bench to suggest a lasting solution to the issue of minority languages in the State. Accordingly, the present CJ had formed a special bench comprising Justices: S. Manikumar, Abdul Qudhose and Subramania Prasad. The arguments from the minority students represented by the LIMFOT and the government lawyers as well were heard and the judgment was reserved on Nov. 12, 2018.
The linguistic minority students appearing for tenth standard examinations next month (around 20,000) are a confused lot now as the judgment has not been delivered by the special bench so far. They are not sure if they could continue studying in their respective mother tongue or not. Hence, the parents of linguistic minority students appeal to the Madras High Court to pronounce the judgment without further delay, he said and urged the State government to grant the minority students interim relief as given in the previous three years, pending final verdict of the court.
Dr. Reddy and LIMFOT general secretary M. Nanda Govind, said in a joint statement here that the main contention of the linguistic minority students is that they had no objection to studying Tamil as a compulsory language but wanted their mother tongue also to be included in the syllabus with minimum marks prescribed for a pass in 10th standard public examination.
