Madras HC violence: How can vernacular language be the official language?

Chennai, Sep 22: The Madras High Court has witnessed unruly behaviour by advocates who decided to parade their families to demand making Tamil the official language in the High Court.

However the implementation of Tamil as an official language in the High Court may not be possible and the Chief Justice of India H L Dattu has rejected that contention.

How can a vernacular language be the official language of any court, the Chief Justice asked?

He minced no words in describing the violence in the Madras High Court as unfortunate and even went on to state that there is a fear psychosis in the minds of the judges in the Madras High Court.

The Madras High Court has witnessed some unruly scenes with advocates protesting and demanding that Tamil be made the official language.

A mob of advocates have gone on the rampage in the Madras High Court and also its Madurai Bench.

They even went a step ahead and paraded women and children in the court and the court halls shouting slogans.

Supreme Court slams advocates

The Supreme Court has taken a very serious view about the incident and said that the demand to implement a vernacular language in the courts is not possible.

Do the judges have to live constantly under fear, Justice Dattu questioned while also wondering why no action has been taken.

The Chief Justice also remarked that there were three associations in Madras for lawyers and it is surprising that no action has been taken or steps taken to control the problem.

The Madras High Court had asked for CISF protection in the wake of these protests.

The CJI also sought to know what the Bar Council of India was doing on the issue.

The CJI made these observations while hearing a matter filed by the high court's registrar general to challenge an order passed by Justice CS Karnan. In this suo motu proceeding he had threatened contempt action against the high court's chief justice.

Senior advocate, K K Venugopal who was appearing for the Madras High Court complained to the Chief Justice about the ongoing violence. He said caste based slogans were being shouted and even processions were being taken out.

The CJI said that he had spoken with the Chief Justice of the High Court and action would be taken soon. The CJI is also said to have met with the Law Minister of India, Sadananda Gowda and discussed the matter.

OneIndia News