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The Madras High Court on Wednesday permitted Communist Party of India’s State secretary R. Mutharasan and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi president Thol. Thirumavalavan to get impleaded in a public interest litigation and oppose the plea for implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in Tamil Nadu.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad allowed the impleading petitions filed by the two political leaders after advocate R. Gururaj, representing the PIL petitioner Arjunan Elayaraja, represented that his client had no objection to the plea for impleadment.
The Bench also directed the High Court Registry to list the PIL petition next on July 31 for hearing.
The PIL plea was filed in 2022 accusing the State government of hesitating to implement NEP 2020 for political reasons and because of “false” fear of Hindi and Sanskrit being imposed on the State. It insisted on implementing the policy in the State with requisite modifications and in accordance with Supreme Court orders.
However, in its counter affidavit, the State government had said, it would be “cruel and disadvantageous to the people of Tamil Nadu” to implement NEP 2020 since the State had already achieved a Gross Enrolment Ratio of 51.4% as against the target of 50% proposed to be achieved across the country through the NEP by 2035.
Highlighting that Tamil Nadu had achieved highest GER as against the national average of just 27.1% as per the All India Survey on Higher Education Report 2020, the State government had said that Tamil Nadu’s education system had proved to be not only the best in the country but also ahead of NEP 2020 by 15 years.
On its part, the Union Ministry of Education told the High Court that it had been regularly following up the issue of implementation of NEP 2020 with the State government and that a letter was written on September 7, 2021 requesting the government to share the initiatives taken and the achievements made so far.
