Chennai: In Tamil Nadu all educational institutions – government as well as private institutions – will have to start singing Vande Mataram. Madras High Court on Tuesday issued a directive to Tamil Nadu chief secretary to ensure compliance of this order passed by Mr Justice MV Muralidharan.

Disposing off a petition by K Veeramani, who sought court’s help to know in which language Vande Mataram was written after teachers recruitment board ruled his answer wrong and deprived him of that one mark, that made difference between appointment and rejection to the post of a teacher in a government school.

The Madras High Court judge ruled that the government schools and colleges must sing Vande Mataram once a week and private institutions should sing it once a month, either in Sanskrit or Bengali. In case neither is possible, the government must make arrangements for translating the song into Tamil and English, the court ruled.

The song should also be played and sung in government institutions, he said adding in government offices, the national song should be played at least once a month. Private companies, factories and industries also come under the ambit of the judgment.

Vande mataram is not just a song but it unites all across the country, the judge observed.

The judge also ordered the recruitment board to award one mark to petitioner Veeramani so that his total became 90 and he qualified for the post, as per the guidelines of the recruitment board

The issue of Vande Mataram was kicked off by petitioner Veeramani when he moved the court for a ruling on the answer to the question “In which language was Vande Mataram first written’? This was the question he faced in recruitment test for the post of BT Assistant. His answer, Bengali, was adjudged wrong and he lost one mark for this wrong answer.

Because of this, Veeramani secured 89 marks, while people with 90 marks qualified for the post of teaching assistant.

Ordering the grant of one mark to the petitioner, the judge ordered the government to issue appointment order within four weeks.

On June 7, the Madras High Court was informed by the petitioner that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote the national song in both Bengali and Sanskrit, while the additional government pleader argued that it was written only in Sanskrit and was later translated to Bengali.

Veeramani submitted to the court that in all the books he had studied, it was mentioned that the song was written in Bengali first.