Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka on Monday dismissed a petition by members of a Konkani organisation for recognition of five different scripts for Konkani writings for the Sahitya Akademi ( National Academy of Letters) award.

Konkani leader Eric Ozario and other petitioners wanted Konkani writings to be recognised in Kannada, Roman (English), Devanagari, Arabic and Malayalam scripts for the grant of award and hence they had written to the Sahitya Akademi in this regard. But the Akademi replied that it would consider only Devanagari script for grant of the award.

They then moved the High Court. Hearing the petition, a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice Ravi Malimath ruled that they would not be able to direct the Sahitya Akademi to including all the five scripts as it had already approved Devanagari script for Konkani writings.