Media Release

Panaji, Jan 19: The Romi Lipi Action Front led by Mr. Wilson Mazarello has moved the Bombay High Court at Goa seeking directions to the Goa Government to amend the Official Language Act to include Konkani in Roman script along with the existing Devanagari. The petition will come up for hearing on Monday 21st January. The Front had last month through Adv. Aires Rodrigues served a legal notice on the Chief Secretary giving the Goa Government a 15 day ultimatum to fulfill its demand.
 
The Romi Lipi Front in its petition before the High Court has stated that the Goa Language Act which restricts the Konkani language to the Devanagari script was unconstitutional, ultra vires, illegal and void.
 
The front has submitted that the power given under Article 345 of the Constitution of India to adopt any language does not empower the Government to restrict any language to a particular script.
 
Stating that Konkani in Roman script is used by a sizable section of the population primarily Catholics who constitute a religious and linguistic minority in Goa, the Front has in its petition also submitted that in terms of Article 29 (1) of the Constitution of India, any section of citizens having a distinct language, script or culture of its own have the right to conserve the same.
 
The petition further states that Catholics who constitute about 30% of the population in Goa are entitled to conserve their language Konkani in Roman script and that Catholics in Goa being a religious and linguistic minority have a constitutional right for the Roman script of Konkani language.
 
It has been submitted that grave injustice was being perpetrated on the users of Roman script of the Konkani language who are entitled to preserve their language and script and that Konkani was being taught only in Devanagari script in schools, to the detriment of the Catholic community and their children, who are forced to learn the Devanagari script.
 
The Romi Lipi Action Front has stated that it was not averse to the Devanagari script but has demanded that both the scripts Roman and Devanagari be used side by side.
 
It has been submitted that for several years it has made umpteen representations against the Goa Language Act which artificially restricts the Konkani language to Devanagari script, but that all sustained efforts by the Romi Lipi Action Front have turned futile.