The Supreme Court of India has ruled that no state can be compelled to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) by force. In a significant development, the Court dismissed a petition seeking mandatory Hindi language education and directed that if individuals wish to learn Hindi, they should do so in Delhi, where the language is widely spoken.
The petition, filed as a public interest litigation (PIL), called for directions to Tamil Nadu and other states to adopt the NEP, which includes provisions for promoting Hindi as a compulsory subject. However, the bench of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan clarified that no state could be ordered to enforce the policy in a manner that infringes on regional preferences or autonomy.
The Court further stated that the validity of the matter would be addressed through a proper hearing and not in the writ petition itself. This ruling reaffirms the importance of state rights in education and language policy, underlining the diversity of India's linguistic landscape.