The Supreme Court on Friday granted protection from coercive action to the members of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association against the Maharashtra government’s rule mandating shops and establishments in the state to display their names in Marathi.
A bench of justices K M Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy passed the interim direction on a plea moved by the association against a Bombay High Court order.
The top court asked the petitioners to submit a list with the names of the association members and said it will now hear the matter on November 18.
The high court had, on February 23, refused to quash the state government’s rule mandating shops and establishments to display their names in Marathi (Devanagari script).
The high court had dismissed a petition filed by the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association and imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on it.
It had noted that there was no bar on using any other language on the display boards and the rule only mandated that the names of the shops will have to be displayed in Marathi.
The petition had challenged an amendment to the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2017, according to which all shops and establishments in the state have to display their names in Marathi, the font size of which shall be the same as that of the other words used in the display boards and not smaller.
The federation had said this was in violation of articles 13 (laws inconsistent with or in derogation of the fundamental rights), 19 (protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech) and 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of the Constitution.
The high court had said the rule was for the convenience of Maharashtra’s public at large, whose mother tongue is Marathi.
“What the petitioner fails to recognise is that this requirement is not meant for retail traders, but for workers and the public who approach them, who are more likely to be familiar with Marathi,” the court had said.
Marathi may be the official language of the state government, but it is also undeniably the common language and the mother tongue of the state’s people, the high court had said.
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