The Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Justice Asim Hafeez has reserved decision on maintainability of a writ petition seeking directions to the authorities concerned to register ‘Meowati’ language as a mother tongue in the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) as well as National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) forms.
Petitioner Abid Hameed Khan Meo made respondents the federation through the Pakistan Bureau of Statistic (PBS) secretary, chief census commissioner, the NSER through secretary planning and development and NADRA through its chairman.
He implored the court that he filed an application for registration of “Pakistan Meo Ittehad” on February 12, 2018. He stated that he had also deposited the fee for registration of the trademark and submitted the application with signed form TM-I.
The proceedings for registration of the trademark are under process, he added.
He said the population of the country is over 220 million, in which the Meo community numbers over 10 million.
He contended that the recognized mother tongues in the country include Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and Seraiki. However, the Meowati language was not registered as mother tongue in the census form, which, he contended, was tantamount to discrimination towards the community.
He added that he had also submitted an application before the chief census commissioner for inclusion of the language in the upcoming census, but the respondent had not accepted the request.
The petitioner filed a writ petition in LHC in 2017, which was disposed of by the court following the response of the bureau in its letter that mentioned “that the data regarding mother tongue is collected through census questionnaires. The PBS had started preparations for holding of census in the country in the year 2006-07 as census was originally due in 2008.
All necessary arrangements including finalisation of census forms were competed by that time. PBS has already got 42.5 million forms printed through DRS Co based in UK and amendments in these forms at this stage is not possible.
Hence, it is not possible to include any question on language spoken at home at this belated stage. However, your request regarding inclusion of Meowati language in census questionnaire will be considered in preparation of questionnaire for the next population and housing census”.
The petitioner contended that now the NSER under the Ehsas programme is collecting the data along the same lines.
He said he had approached the NSER through an application for inclusion of the language in the form but the respondents had not included it in the registry.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 26th, 2021.
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