The Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Friday asked the Central government to explain what action has been taken against the authorities for not including a Master’s degree in Tamil as a minimum qualification for getting admission to the two-year post-graduate diploma in archaeology course offered by the Archaeological Survey of India.
A petition was filed by an advocate in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court seeking direction to scrap the notification issued by the Ministry of Culture for not including a Master’s degree in Tamil as a minimum qualification for getting admission to the two-year post-graduate diploma in archaeology course for 2020-2022 offered by Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Institute of Archaeology.
The hearing was taken up on Friday by the bench of justices Kirubakaran and Pugazhenthi. Though the advocate who appeared for the Central Government submitted before the bench that the Central Government has already issued a new circular on 8th October including classical languages that included Tamil as a criterion for admission, the Judges continued to question why Tamil was not added in the first instance.
The bench said that the stand taken by the Central Government in this issue is unacceptable. It observed that the authorities should understand the states were formed based on the language and not on any other criteria. The judges added that the clarification of adding Tamil to the list has come after several political parties took up the issues and a petition was moved against the circular in the Court. Adjourning the case for 28 October, the court directed the Central Government to submit a detailed report about the actions taken against the negligent authorities of the Ministry of Culture.
Meanwhile, TN Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami today thanked the Prime Minister for the latter’s immediate response to his request to include PG degree in Tamil as one of the minimum qualifications for the archaeology course.
“I appreciate the prompt response and once again thank you for the immediate action in the matter,” he added.
