The Supreme Court on Monday said that it could not impose yoga on anyone or frame its curriculum as it declined to entertain a PIL seeking direction to make yoga a part of school syllabus.
Dismissing the PIL and asking the petitioner to implead itself in the similar matter being heard by another bench of the top court, a bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice D.Y.Chandrachud and Justice L.Nageswara Rao told the petitioner to go and persuade the people to practice yoga.
PIL petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay had sought direction to the Human Resource Development Ministry, the National Council of Educational Research and Training, the National Council for Teacher Education and the Central Board of Secondary Education to "provide standard textbooks of 'yoga and health education' for students of Class 1 to 8" in the spirit of the Constitution's Article 21A read with Article 14, 15 and 21.
As senior counsel M.N. Krishnamani appearing for Upadhyay urged the court to consider the prayer, Chief Justice Thakur asked him if he was doing yoga even in this polluted environment, and the last 'asana' he had performed. As he did not answer, the court said that it was not impressed by his knowledge of yoga.
"We are not impressed by your knowledge of yoga. That shows you are not doing yoga," observed the bench in a lighter vein.
"Mr Krishnamani, you are not doing yoga nowadays, otherwise you would have remembered the last yoga you did," said the Chief Justice.
"The government of India celebrates international yoga day and it is observed in other countries as well. People themselves will pick yoga. We can't frame curriculum," the bench observed rejecting the PIL.