PHC moved to direct KP govt to implement Urdu as official language

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) was moved on Friday seeking directions to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and high court registrar to declare and implement Urdu as the official language of the province in all government departments and provincial judiciary.

Senior lawyer of Supreme Court Muhammad Khurshid Khan filed the writ petition in the high court through his lawyer Abdur Rauf Rohaila.

In the seven-page writ petition prepared in Urdu, he sought directions from the court to order the provincial government to implement Articles 251 and 28 of the Constitution and also the Supreme Court decision regarding making Urdu the official language of the country.

The petition stated that besides local languages Urdu is spoken in all parts of the country from the mountainous areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Karachi.

As per national and international statistics, the petitioner said 54 percent people are literate in Pakistan. He pointed out that as per the 1962 and 1973 Constitutions of Pakistan, Urdu was declared as national language.

Besides, he stated that the National Assembly, Senate and provincial assemblies had passed several resolutions that Urdu would be used as official language in all the government departments, Supreme Court, High Courts and subordinate courts of the country.

The petition noted that for the first time in 2004 the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government tried to implement Urdu as official language and the chief minister issued a notification to this effect to all the government departments, but it wasn’t implemented due to bureaucratic hurdles.

He argued that a small segment of the society spoke and wrote in English, but it dominated the society. He submitted that on September 8, 2015 the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to immediately make Urdu the official language.

According to the petition, the apex court in its verdict stressed the need for implementing Article 251 of the Constitution that Urdu would replace English as the official language in the country within 15 years. “The court said the implementation of the constitutional provision pertaining to Urdu was the responsibility of the government. The court has issued nine directions to the government regarding the implementation of Urdu as the official language,” the petition pointed out.

The court guidelines for the government included implementation of the provisions of Article 251 without unnecessary delay by the federal and provincial governments. It said the timelines given by the government must be considered for implementation in line with Article 251.

The court directed the federal government and provincial governments to coordinate with one another for ensuring uniformity in the Urdu lexigraph. It also directed that federal and provincial laws should be translated into Urdu within three months. The court also wanted the competitive examinations at the federal level to be conducted in Urdu.

The apex court also directed that judgment in cases relating to public interest litigation and judgments enunciating a principal of law in terms of Article 189 must be translated into Urdu and published in line with Article 251 of the Constitution.

It was stated in the decision that in court cases, government departments should make all reasonable efforts to submit their replies in Urdu to enable citizens to effectively enforce their legal rights. “If, subsequent to this judgment, any public bodies or public officials continue to violate the constitutional command contained in Article 251, citizens who suffer a tangible loss directly and resulting from such violation shall be entitled to enforce any civil rights, which may accrue to them on this account,” the judgment noted as mentioned in the petition.