Urdu will be Uttar Pradesh’s second official language. The Supreme Court on Thursday gave its stamp of approval on a State law making Urdu as the other official language after Hindi.
A Constitution bench of five judges held, “language laws of the country are not rigid but accommodative to secure the object of linguistic secularism,” giving sanction for State documents, signboards, gazette notification and Government orders to be published in Urdu as well.
The Bench comprising Chief Justice RM lodha, Justices Dipak Misra, Madan lokur, Kurian Joseph and SA Bobde found no bar under the Constitution that prevents a State from declaring one or more languages, besides Hindi, as its official language.
The decision came on a petition filed by Hindi Sahitya Sammelan challenging constitutional validity of Official language (Amendment) Act 1989 by which Urdu was recognised as second language in the State.
The bench said, “Nothing in Article 345 (Official language or languages of a State), in our view, bars declaring one or more of the languages in use in the State, in addition to Hindi, as the second official language.”
The petitioner had argued that once if a State had adopted Hindi as official language, it was barred under Article 345 to adopt any other language as official language of the State. But the Court refused to agree with this argument as it found the States of Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and even National Capital of Delhi which had more than one official language.
“The plain language of Article 345 which empowers the State legislature to make law for adoption of one or more of the languages in use in the State leaves no manner of doubt that such power may be exercised by the State legislature from time to time,” said the bench.