Official Language

Indian Polity

Chapter 32: Official Language

Official languages:

• The Official languages are mentioned in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
• The official language is mentioned in the part XVII of the Indian Constitution.
• The original Constitution mentioned 14 languages as the official languages.
• This is covered in the articles from 343 to 351.
• Hindi is the official language of the Union.
• The English language was permitted for not more than a period of 15 years from the date of commencement of the Constitution for all the official purposes of the Union.
• Official Language Act, 1963: The English language was continued as the official language along with Hindi by enacting Official Language Act, 1963.
• Article 343: The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.
• The Official Language Commission is appointed by the President.
• The first Official Language Commission was appointed in the year 1955.
• B G Kher was the chairman of the first Official Language Commission.
• Every bill that is introduced in the Parliament is also accompanied by a Hindi translation.
• The language that is used in Supreme Court is English only.
• The state legislatures were permitted to adopt any one or more than one languages.
• A state can adopt more than one language.
• The Parliament can provide that all the proceedings in Supreme Court and High Courts are to be in English.
• The Governor with the prior consent of the President can authorize the use of Hindi or any other language of the state in the proceedings of the concerned High Court.
• All bills, acts, ordinances, orders, rules, regulations and Bye-laws at the central and states to be in English.
• The state legislature can prescribe the use of any language other than English with respect to bills, acts, ordinances, orders, rules, regulations, or bye-laws, but a translation of the same in the English language is to be published.
• An aggrieved person who belongs to the linguistic minorities has the right to submit a representation in any language used in the Union or states for the redress of grievances to any authority under the central or state government.
• Every state should provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education.
• The President should appoint a special officer for linguistic minorities to investigate all matters relating to the constitutional safeguards for linguistic minorities and to report to him.
• These reports are placed in front of the Parliament and sent to the concerned state governments.

How Many Languages Are Present In The 8th Schedule?

• In the original constitution only 14 languages were mentioned.
• At present the number of languages mentioned in the 8th schedule is 22.
• Sindhi was the 15th language added through 21st amendment in the year 1971.
• Konakani, Nepali and Manipuri languages were added through the 71st amendment in the year 1992.
• The next 4 languages that added to the 8th schedule were Bodo, Dogri, Maitihli and Santhali.
• The last four languages were added through 100th amendment.

The List Of The Languages Mentioned In The 8th Schedule:

1. Assamese
2. Bengali
3. Bodo
4. Dogri
5. Gujarati
6. Hindi
7. Kannada
8. Kashmiri
9. Konkani
10. Maithili
11. Malayalam
12. Manipuri
13. Marathi
14. Nepali
15. Oriya
16. Punjabi
17. Sanskrit
18. Santhali
19. Sindhi
20. Tamil
21. Telugu
22. Urdu

Miscellaneous:

• In the year 2010 the Gujarat High Court observed that though the majority of the people in India have accepted Hindi as a national language there was nothing on record to suggest that any provision has been made or order issued declaring Hindi as a national language of the country.

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