Chennai, Dec. 6: The Tamil Nadu Assembly today passed a resolution seeking the President’s approval for making Tamil the sole official language of Madras High Court, ignoring the advice of the chief justice.

Chief minister M. Karunanidhi moved the resolution, which was passed by a voice vote in the absence of the Opposition ADMK and MDMK.

Article 348(2) of the Constitution, read with Section 7 of the Official Languages Act, 1963, allows all high court proceedings in the state’s official language, “subject to the authorisation of the governor of the state, after obtaining the consent of the President of India”, the resolution said.

The Tamil Nadu government has decided to introduce Tamil “in orders, decrees and other proceedings of the Madras High Court”, according to the above constitutional provision, and this is a “historic decision”, Karunanidhi said.

Chief Justice A.P. Shah wrote to Karunanidhi a few days ago that though “in principle” the judges accepted the government’s decision, any attempt to issue a notification without creating the necessary infrastructure “may not be fruitful and the desired result will not be achieved”.

Unless a “comprehensive project” for the translation of all enactments and laws is undertaken and completed, the “switchover to Tamil will not be fully effective for the purpose of delivering justice”, he said.

Karunanidhi assured the House that all these infrastructure and manpower facilities will be provided.

“We will strive hard and take all steps to make the lamp of Tamil glow in the portals of the high court,” the DMK chief said, winding up an emotional debate on the resolution.

The decision to make Tamil the official language of the high court “deserves to be inscribed in golden letters”, the chief minister said, and regretted the absence of the ADMK and MDMK members.

Justice Shah had said there must be sufficient trained translators to translate the records from English to Tamil, stenographers trained in both English and Tamil, good Tamil translations of classical Constitutional treatises and matching Tamil software in the backdrop of the computerisation of the judiciary.