The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a public interest litigation seeking directions to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal to implement the National Education Policy including the three-language formula, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan noted that Article 32 of the Constitution only allows the court to enforce fundamental rights but does not extend to directing states to adopt a specific policy.

“It cannot directly compel a State to adopt a policy like the National Education Policy 2020,” the court said. “The Court may, however, intervene if a State’s action or inaction related to the National Education Policy violates any fundamental rights. We do not propose to examine this issue in this writ petition.”

The petition was filed by a lawyer named GS Mani, who contended that Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal were constitutionally obliged to implement the National Education Policy, the Hindustan Times reported.

Mani argued that the policy only sought to bring about uniformity in education, and claimed that some states were unnecessarily trying to turn it into a political controversy.

Under the New Education Policy, the Centre has proposed that education up to Class 5, and preferably until Class 8, will be imparted in the mother tongues of students. Classical languages like Sanskrit have also been proposed at all levels, while foreign languages will be offered at the secondary level.

However, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief MK Stalin called the policy an attempt to impose Hindi and Sanskrit on the entire country. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan echoed the same sentiment, blaming the policy for “commercialisation” and “centralisation” of education.

The West Bengal government opposed the policy, arguing that it undermined the federal structure of the country.

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