2 min readNew DelhiMay 22, 2026 11:57 AM IST
The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear next week a plea challenging the CBSE policy which has made study of three languages, including at least two native Indian languages, compulsory for Class 9 students beginning July 1.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi mentioned the matter before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi.
“This is an urgent PIL. The petitioners are students, teachers and parents. They are challenging the new policy of the CBSE by which in the 9th standard, two more languages have been made compulsory,” Rohatgi said.
Urging the top court to list the matter for hearing on Monday, Rohatgi said, “It will create a chaos”.
The CJI said next week will be a miscellaneous week and the matter would be listed.
According to a recent circular issued by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the board has made the study of three languages, including at least two native Indian languages, compulsory for Class 9 students beginning July 1.
The third language will be exempted from the Class 10 board exam, and its assessment will be “entirely school-based and internal”. The curriculum announced in April had adopted a phased approach to implement the three-language formula (R1, R2, R3), making it mandatory only in Class 6 this year. Under that plan, students currently in Class 6 would have been the first batch to have R3 in Class 10 in 2030-31. However, in its latest circular issued last week, the Board reversed its earlier decision to not make R3 compulsory in Class 9 immediately, and stated that the scheme of studies for languages in Classes 9-10 is being aligned with the NCERT syllabus.
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“With effect from 1st July 2026, for Class IX, the study of three languages (R1, R2, R3) shall be compulsory, with at least two languages being native Indian languages,” it said. “Students who wish to study a foreign language may do so as the third language only if the other two languages are native Indian languages, or as an additional fourth language,” the official notification said.