Clarify on language of exams in postal dept: HC to Centre

The Madras High Court Thursday ordered the Centre to clarify whether Tamil would be the language of the examination for recruitment in the postal department.

The order comes two days after the Union government cancelled the postal department exams in Tamil Nadu in view of the opposition to conduct the exam only in English and Hindi.

A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad passed the interim order on the PIL filed by DMK MLA Ezhilarasan challenging the exclusion of Tamil as one of the languages for exams conducted for recruitment to posts of postman and mail guard, among others, in the postal department.

 

P Wilson, senior counsel for the petitioner, submitted that exclusion of Tamil as one of the languages for the examination was illegal.

"All along recruitment for the class IV posts were done in English, Hindi and the regional languages in states where Hindi is not the local language. There are only nine or ten states where local languages have been shown as Hindi," he said.

Hence the citizens in other states, whose mother tongue and medium of instruction is not Hindi are at a disadvantage, Wilson contended.

Assistant solicitor general G Karthikeyan, representing the Union government, submitted that the examinations have already been cancelled by the government.

To this, Wilson said, "Merely because one of the examinations for in-service candidates has been cancelled, it doesn't automatically revive Tamil as one of the languages in case future examinations are notified."

Recording the submission, the bench directed the assistant solicitor general to get instructions on whether Tamil would be the language of an examination in case the examinations were notified in the future.