More than 7000 class 10 students have been exempted from appearing for the compulsory Tamil language exam on the basis of a court order.  

Officials of the Directorate of Government examinations said on Friday that 7,899 class 10 students will be exempted from appearing for the Tamil exam.  

These students will be allowed to write the exam in their own mother tongue.

Students from more than 100 government schools had sought exemption from the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act, which had made Tamil compulsory in the class 10 exams.

Of the students exempted, at least 4,000 are from private and government-aided schools while the rest are from government schools.

By passing the law, the state government had made it mandatory for schools to teach Tamil irrespective of affliation. Since then, it has been implemented in a phased manner from Class 1 since 2006-07. This year, it was made compulsory for class X.

Students and teachers approached the Madras High Court seeking relief, and the Court directed the Tamil Nadu government to take a liberal approach to students whose mother tongue was not Tamil.