Supreme Court dismisses plea to make Sanskrit national language

A Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Krishna Murari declined to issue notice on the petition for the "sake of publicity"

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea to make Sanskrit the national language.

A Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Krishna Murari declined to issue notice on the petition for the "sake of publicity".

The court said the issue was in the realm of policy, requiring constitutional amendments which entailed detailed discussion in the Parliament and not in the courtroom.

The petitioner's lawyer invoked Sanskrit as a "mother language" from which other tongues took inspiration. In a bid to press his point, he repeatedly invoked oriental scholar Sir William Jones and his study of the ancient language.

"We know several languages have taken words from Sanskrit, but that does not mean it can be declared as a national language by us," the Bench said.

At one point, the Bench asked the petitioner to speak a paragraph in Sanskrit when the latter continued to impress the court about the need to make it the national language at least through an executive order.

The court finally dismissed the case.