Supreme Court Asks Tamil Nadu Govt To Ascertain Land Needed To Establish Navodaya Vidyalayas
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu government to have a consultation with the union government regarding the setting up of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) in districts across the state.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said that India was a “federal society”, and the state government should not adopt an adversarial attitude on the issue.
Tamil Nadu is the only state that does not have any JNVs, the schools run by central government. The state has argued that the three-language formula, including learning of Hindi, followed in JNVs is contradictory to the two-language formula followed in Tamil Nadu.
The direction was made while hearing a special leave petition preferred by the state government against a 2017 order of the Madras High Court, which had asked the state government to allocate land for setting up JNVs. The HC’s order was issued based on a petition filed by the organisation, Kumari Maha Sabha.
Directing the authorities to ascertain the extent of land required for establishing JNVs in each district of Tamil Nadu, the apex court on Monday said, “You come one step, they will also come one step. They may come two steps”.