KARACHI: Court can’t set deadline for switching to Urdu
KARACHI, Feb 14: A division bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab disposed of a writ petition for adoption of Urdu as the official language with the observation that steps were being taken to give effect to the constitutional mandate and it was not for the court to prescribe a time-frame.
Petitioner M. Iqbal Kazmi submitted that Urdu was to replace English and used for official and other purposes by the year 1988 under Article 151 of the Constitution but no step has been taken to fulfill the constitutional requirement despite the expiry of the extended deadline.
The federal and provincial law officers said in their rejoinders that a number of measures had been taken to give the national language its due status. The National Language Authority and other organisations and institutions were busy facilitating the use of Urdu as the official language. A cabinet committee has recently decided to expedite the adoption of national language in all spheres.—Staff Reporter
