Undue advantage given to Hindi students

Telugu Bhashodyama Samakhya, which has been spearheading a legal fight with UPSC on the injustice caused to Telugu students, criticised the central body for being 'partial' in the slew of reforms announced recently. The public interest litigation filed by the Samakhya on Monday has stirred up Telugu heartland in a big way and many students, especially those who aspire to become civil servants have immediately supported the move. The PIL has been listed for hearing on next Monday, Samala Ramesh Babu, president of Samakhya told The Hans India. Elaborating the grey areas in the UPSC notification, the petition said-"Article 14 of the Constitution ensures equality before law and equal protection of laws and Article 16 states there shall be equality of opportunity for all criticizes in matters relating to employment or appointments to any office under the State and no citizen be discriminated against on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence etc. Many students of south Indian students are choosing their regional language as medium of study and sometimes without having their own language as medium of study. This is particularly true in the case of candidates studying professional courses like B Tech and MBBS. So, any discrimination in this regard favoring Hindi candidates and causing disadvantage to others is nothing but violation of Article 16 of constitution. There is no reasonable nexus in classifying candidates fo Hindi and English as one group and others as another group. Even in preliminary exams, this differentiation is evident giving undue advantage to Hindi candidates in the paper setting as the English paper is available as translation in Hindi to Hindi-knowing candidates". "UPSC appears to stifle the use of languages included in Schedule 8 of the Constitution. The Official Language Resolution adopted by both Houses of Parliament in 1968, specifically states that al the languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution and English shall be permitted as alternative media for the All India and Higher Central Services examinations after ascertaining the views of UPSC. Thus the alternative media of the languages included in Schedule 8 cannot be whittled down by a committee," the petitioner said. Stating that the time has not come to recognize either Hindi or English as national language in India, the petitioner observed that all languages listed in schedule 8 shall be respected equally. "When new measures were taken up in 1978 and 1990, sufficient time was given to students and there was advance intimation as well. Now, there is no such chance. Public views were not elicited. Now the candidates have to rush in to go through a vast syllabus. What's this?" the petitioner wondered. The petitioner has urged the High Court to declare the changes made by UPSC with respect of regional languages as illegal, null and void and facilitate the students to choose one of the languages of Schedule 8 of Constitution.