Supreme Court issues notice to Maha govt over display nameboards of shops and establishments in Marathi

The Supreme Court has issued a notice on petition filed by the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association, challenging the Maharashtra government's direction to display nameboards of shops and establishments in Marathi.

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Maharashtra government on a plea challenging the government decision mandating all shops and establishments within the state to display their signboards in Marathi.

The plea was filed by the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association. Earlier, the Bombay High Court had upheld the mandatory direction for Marathi nameboards.

During the hearing today before Justices K M Joseph and Krishna Murari, Senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayan appearing before the Petitioners told the bench, "There has been stone-throwing at my shops. Can you interfere with my rights as a linguistic minority? Don't want to get into outsider debate but i do have right to settle anywhere."

At this, the bench said," Is your own language banned? Why have you brought in constitutional questions?"

Sankarnarayan responded, "No. Only has to be in same size as Marathi. But it should be upto me whom I want to cater to. Having to spend on Marathi signboards is disproportionate. Invasion on my personal choice like how vegetarianism is imposed by some. In Bombay I am not sure everyone would know Marathi. They are saying rights under Article 19 not absolute or unfettered."As per the petitioner, BMC prescribed new requirements for changing signboards under Section 36A of Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act and the amendment did not prescribe a fixed time period.

However, the civic body has announced a deadline of May 31 through newspaper advertisements and issued notices to establishments.

The petition further claimed that failure to abide by the requirement within the deadline would attract a penalty up to Rs 50,000.