SURESHBHAI B KACHHADIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS public interest litigation has been preferred by the petitioner for directing the respondents to ensure that the manufacturers of goods are obliged to show or write or publish all the details of goods namely price of goods, ingredients of goods, date of manufacture, manufacturing and marketing unit etc. in Hindi.

(2.) LEARNED Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that the consumers are entitled to know what they are consuming as a right is available to them under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The Legislature has made provisions in the Statute making the consumers aware about ingredients they are consuming and what is provided to them. The language, as per dictionary meaning, means mode of communication which generally is used in nation or in a group of people and if the things are conveyed or communicated in that particular people or citizens or group of people, they will understand it correctly in its correct sense and spirit. It was contended that Hindi being the national language and has been communicated and understood by a large number of persons in the country, direction should be given to publish all details of goods in Hindi. Learned Counsel for the petitioner relied on the deliberation which was made in the discussion of the Constituent Assembly wherein deliberating on the issue of language formula, it was suggested by the Sub -Committee to use Hindustani written either in the Devanagari or the Persian script, as the national language and for its inclusion in the Fundamental Rights.

(3.) LEARNED Counsel appearing on behalf of Union of India by referring to the Standards of Weights and Measures (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 1977 submitted that under Rule 9(4) it has been prescribed that the particulars of declaration required to be specified under this rule on a package shall be either in Hindi in Devanagari script or in English. Similarly, Rule 33(3A) also prescribes that the particulars of declaration required to be specified under the said rule on a package either in Hindi in Devanagari script or in English. We have heard the learned Counsel for the parties and notice their rival contentions. It is true that the Constituent Assembly while discussing the Language Formula noticed the recommendation of the Sub -Committee on Fundamental Rights, which recommended the following formula: