Article 344: the Commission on official language and the Committee of thirty members of Parliament

Background

Article 344 of the Constitution requires the President to constitute a Commission on official language, which consists of a Chairman and such other members representing the different languages specified in the Eighth Schedule as the President may appoint.
The Commission makes recommendations on the progressive use of Hindi for the official purposes of the Union, on restrictions on the use of English, on the language to be used for the purposes mentioned in Article 348, and on the form of numerals to be used.
In making its recommendations the Commission must have due regard to the industrial, cultural and scientific advancement of India and to the just claims and interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services.
Article 344 also provides for a Committee consisting of thirty members, of whom twenty are members of the House of the People and ten are members of the Council of States.
They are elected by the members of the respective Houses in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
The Committee examines the recommendations of the Commission and reports its opinion to the President, who may then issue directions in accordance with the whole or any part of that report.
Under Article 120 business in Parliament is transacted in Hindi or in English, and the Chairman of the Council of States or the Speaker of the House of the People may permit a member who cannot adequately express himself in either to address the House in his mother-tongue.
Under the provisos to Article 210 the corresponding fifteen year period was substituted by twenty-five years for the Legislatures of Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura, and by forty years for those of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram.