Hindi is a foreign language for Gujaratis: Gujarat High Court

A bench of the Gujarat high court has held that Hindi is a foreign language for local Gujaratis who study and speak in Gujarati. 

The bench of Justice VM Sahai and Justice AJ Desai made this observation in a case against National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) which had published a notification for land acquisition in a local Gujarati newspaper in Hindi. 

The bench quashed the NHAI notification observing that it is an admitted position that the language of the region where the petitioners (local villagers) live and the language used by them is Gujarati. "Hindi language used in the notification is a foreign language for them," it said.

The high court bench also termed the action on the notification, which had invited objections from the affected people, as null and void.