The Supreme Court on Monday gave two months to retailers to install new Marathi signboards even as it agreed to consider their challenge to the rule introduced last year by Maharashtra government making Marathi signboards compulsory outside every big and small shop in the state.
A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said, “Now is the time to have Marathi signboards, ahead of Diwali and Dussehra… You are in Maharashtra. You do not know the benefit of having Marathi signboards?”
The rule was introduced by the state government in Section 36-A of the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (regulation of employment and conditions of service) Act last year. Last month, Maharashtra filed an affidavit which said that the use of Marathi on signboards was already part of the Rules under the unamended law and the new provision uniformly extended it to small shops with less than 10 employees as well.