The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to take a decision within three months on framing a national yoga policy making yoga compulsory for students of Class I-VIII across the country.

The direction came from a bench headed by Justice Madan B lokur on a set of two PIls filed by one JC Seth and another lawyer Ashwini K Upadhyay. Interestingly, when the same issue came up before a bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur recently, the Court refused to pass any order suggesting it was not possible for the Courts to impose yoga upon the school curriculum. The petition was not dismissed as Upadhyay was allowed to intervene in the proceedings filed by Seth.

Dealing with the two petitions on Tuesday, the Court asked the Centre to treat the petitions as a representation and take a decision within three months. The petition had demanded the Ministry of Human Resources Development along with NCERT, NCTE and CBSE to provide standard textbooks of ‘yoga and health education’ for students of Class I-VIII.

The petitioner had argued that ‘Right to health’ is an integral part of fundamental right to life under Article 21. “State has an obligation to provide health facilities to all the citizens, especially to children and adolescents. In a welfare state, it is obligation of the State to ensure the creation and sustenance of conditions congenial to good health,” Upadhyay said in his plea.

The bench also allowed the petitioners to approach the Court in the event they failed to receive a satisfactory response from the Government.