CBSE's 3-language scheme doesn't hit federalism, but will study infra constraints: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine validity of CBSE’s recent policy mandating three languages, two of which must be Indian languages, for Class IX, which parents termed as a sure recipe for chaos and confusion in the absence of trained teachers, required textbooks and denial of choice to students.Many lawyers, including Mukul Rohatgi, Kapil Sibal and Shraddha Deshmukh, repeatedly requested for stay on the implementation of the policy that is to come into force from July 1. But a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi parried the request and said, “The object (of the three-language policy) can be salutary, but we understand the difficulty faced by students in absence of infrastructural and teaching support.“SC did not agree with the contention that the three-language scheme impinges on federalism, but said it can be examined on the ground of reasonableness in view of infrastructure constraints.The bench entertained a bunch of petitions – led by the one filed by parents and teachers from the National Capital Region and Chennai – seeking a comprehensive affidavit dealing with all issues flagged by petitioners related to implementation of the policy, and said it would dedicate a day for its adjudication in the second week of July.“There is a silver lining as there is no examination right now,” CJI said, but recognised the importance of pleas of hardship and inconvenience that could be caused to students in the absence of trained teachers and textbooks in Indian languages. SC issued notices to the education ministry, CBSE and NCERT.Additional SG Aishwarya Bhati said the policy has been crafted after a lot of deliberations and the court must await the reaction of students after its implementation before adjudicating its validity.Sibal said the insistence on two native languages deprived students of having an informed choice and raised issues of federalism.Justice Bagchi was quick to respond and said there is no issue of federalism, as more and more languages are added to the eighth schedule terming them as national languages. “But this could be an issue of unreasonableness when trained teachers and books are not available in the schools,” he said.The lead petition, filed through advocate Deshmukh by 17 parents and two teachers of children studying in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Chennai in CBSE-affiliated schools, said the new policy is contrary to CBSE’s April 9 notification categorically assuring that third language is “not applicable till the academic session 2029-30 at the Class IX level”.However, change of policy to three languages, of which two must be Indian, on May 15 – after commencement of session for 2026-27, allocation of languages and finalisation of timetables – will cause irreversible harm to thousands of Class IX students and take away livelihood of many teachers proficient in teaching foreign languages, as they would have to make way for teachers who can teach regional languages, the petition said.It said the problem of students and teachers are aggravated by the non-availability of textbooks and teaching material and CBSE making ad hoc arrangements by asking students to learn the basics of the second Indian language from Class VI textbooks.“Mandating a compulsory subject without textbooks, trained teachers, or an assessment framework does not amount to quality education; it is a constitutional violation,” the petition said, and requested SC to stop CBSE from making such compromises on quality education.