Hry Assembly passes Bill making use of Hindi must in working of subordinate courts, tribunals

The Haryana Assembly on Wednesday passed a Bill making use of Hindi must in working of subordinate courts and tribunals in the state.

The assembly in the evening passed the Haryana Official Language (Amendment) Bill, 2020 to amend the Haryana Official Language Act, 1969.

As per the Bill, which was introduced by Education minister Kanwar Pal, the Haryana Official Language Act, 1969 was passed by the state legislature to provide for adoption of Hindi as the language to be used for official purposes of Haryana.

The Act does not make any specific mention about use of Hindi in courts and tribunals subordinate to the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, it states.

Before the Bill was passed, there was a lengthy discussion on it as senior Congress leader B B Batra raised concern, saying the High Court Chief Justice should have been consulted before the Bill was brought.

"I am not against Hindi, let me make it clear. But my question is why does the state government want to impose it in subordinate courts. The government should have consulted the High Court Chief Justice. Had they brought the Bill in the next session, we will have no objection. All proceedings in Hindi in subordinate courts will lead to complications," said the Rohtak MLA.

The Bill states that in all the civil courts and criminal courts in Haryana subordinate to the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, all revenue courts and rent tribunals or any other court or tribunal constituted by the state government, work shall be done in Hindi language.

Responding to concerns raised by the Congress member, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said this Bill has been introduced after carefully considering all aspects. He said it will facilitate the common people to a great extent.

"We have restricted this to subordinate courts, district courts. Some states have made use of Hindi in their high courts too. As far as implementing Hindi in high court work too, the Haryana governor has on the state government's request sent his recommendation to the president for his assent for directing High Court under Article 348 (2) to use Hindi," said Khattar in the House.

As per the Bill, Haryana was carved out from the erstwhile state of Punjab in 1966 on linguistic basis as Hindi is the predominantly spoken language in the area. In 1969, as per the provision of section 3 of the Haryana Official Language Act, Hindi was declared the official language of Haryana.

The Haryana government had also received a demand letter signed by 78 MLAs of Haryana, advocate general of Haryana and hundreds of advocates, wherein they have expressed their interest to get Hindi language authorised for use in the courts so that the citizens of Haryana can understand the entire justice process in their own language and can easily put their views before the courts, the Bill said.