SC to hear PIL against CBSE's 3-language policy

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a PIL by parents and teachers in NCR and Chennai challenging the validity of CBSE's recent policy mandating three languages, two of which must be Indian for Class 9 and said it would lead to chaos and confusion.

Seeking urgent hearing of the PIL, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi told a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi that suddenly, Class 9 students were being made to compulsorily study two more languages. "How do the students cope with this and appear in the language paper examinations? This will create chaos and confusion among students and teachers," Rohatgi said.

The CJI-led bench assured that it would hear the petition next week. The petition, jointly filed by 17 parents and two teachers of children studying in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Chennai in CBSE-affiliated schools through advocate Shradha Deshmukh, contended that the new policy was contrary to CBSE's April 9 notification categorically assuring that third language was "not applicable till the academic session 2029-30 at the Class 9 level".

However, on May 15, after the commencement of academic session for 2026-27 and language allocations having been made and timetables finalised, the switch to three languages, of which two must be Indian, would cause irreversible harm to thousands of Class 9 students and would take away livelihoods of many teachers proficient in teaching foreign languages as they would have to make way for teachers who can teach regional languages, the petition said.

It added the problems of students and teachers were aggravated by the non-availability of textbooks and teaching material, and CBSE was making ad hoc arrangements by asking students to learn the basics of the second Indian language from Class 6 textbooks. "Mandating a compulsory subject without textbooks, trained teachers, or an assessment framework does not amount to quality education; it is a constitutional violation," the petitioners said, requesting the SC to bar CBSE from compromising on quality education.