The Supreme Court dismissed the petition filed in the Supreme Court to declare Sanskrit as the national language of India. While dismissing the petition of accepting Sanskrit as the national language, the court said that it is a policy decision, which requires amendment to be done in the Constitution of India. During the hearing of the PIL, the court asked the petitioner to recite a line in Sanskrit and said, when you can’t even recite a line in Sanskrit how can you demand for Sanskrit to be recognized as national language. The petition was filed in the court on behalf of retired bureaucrat DG Vanzara. He talked about the promotion of the language through the declaration of Sanskrit as the national language.

On this, the bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice Krishna Murari said that this policy comes within the purview of the decision. This would also require an amendment to the Constitution of India and simply a writ cannot be issued to the Parliament to declare a language as the national language. The declaration of national language is not a simple process instead a long one that needs multiple stages to be passed. Although we also think that declaring a national language will only extend the disharmony.

The bench asked, in how many cities in India Sanskrit is spoken? On the other hand, Vanzara said that he wants a discussion on this from the Center and the intervention of the court will be helpful in starting the discussion at the government level.