Chennai: The Madras high court has granted exemption to 24 students of G.K.Jain Higher Secondary School in Royapuram, from taking Tamil examination in the ensuing public examination for class 10.
Allowing the petitions filed by C.Priya Singh and 23 others, a division bench comprising Justices C.T.Selvam and M.V.Muralidaran quashed the orders of the Chief Educational Officer and District Educational Officer, Chennai.
According to petitioners, they had all undergone their primary education in Hindi medium. When they were admitted into the 6thstandard in G.K.Jain Higher Secondary School, they had undergone education in Hindi. Till 2015, there were no Tamil teaching teachers in the school and only in 2016, Tamil teaching teachers were appointed. They were similarly placed students like migrating from other states since their mother tongue was Hindi, they added.
Quoting an observation made by the high court earlier while upholding the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act, 2016 and also the visit report of the District Educational Officer placed before it, the bench said, “We are of the view that requiring students, exemption for whom is sought, to take Tamil paper as a compulsory subject in the ensuing X standard examination would be unjustified.”
