The High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), seeking direction to the government to either declare Hindi as official language or one of the languages in J&K.
A division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjay Dhar issued the notice after hearing advocates Priyanshu Sharma and Aditya Sharma on behalf of the petitioners.
The notice seeking response has been issued to Commissioner Secretary, General Administrative Department; Commissioner Secretary, Law; Principal Secretary, Home department and Financial Commissioner Revenue.
During the course of hearing, the counsel submitted that in the erstwhile state of J&K, the commonly used language in Jammu was Dogri and Hindi.
They submitted that in all the government and private schools in Jammu, Hindu has been a “compulsory subject” up to class 10 and Urdu as optional.
“Also the people of Jammu have become constant victim of this language barrier which has been slapped over them by the administration in the erstwhile J&K state,” they submitted.
This, they said, was discrimination from “day one of accession of J&K and is still holding its feet even after abrogation of Article 370.”
“The revenue record and police record are in Urdu language because of which people of Jammu have to be at the receiving end always and even as per the High Court rules, a translated copy is required to be submitted which makes it difficult for the judiciary as well as the people,” they said.
The petitioners have sought direction to government to declare Hindi as official language in Jammu and Kashmir in terms of section 47 of the J&K Reorganization Act-2019.