Punjab govt requests Supreme Court to tweak its Urdu verdict

ISLAMABAD:

The Punjab government has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its September 8 judgment in which the court ordered the federal and provincial governments to use Pakistan’s national language, Urdu, as official language with full force and without any delay.

Additional Advocate General Razzaq A Mirza has filed review petition on behalf of Punjab chief secretary and provincial law secretary. The petition has requested that the apex court should amend its judgment where the verdict obligates the respective governments to translate all the available laws from English to Urdu within three months.



The judgment had also ordained the statutory, regulatory and oversight bodies to take steps without unnecessary delay to implement Article 251 of the Constitution which asks to use the national language of the country.

The deadline of three months as suggested by the Supreme Court judgment is ending on December 8.

The review petition states that the provincial government has already created three posts of translators and has framed rules in this regard in addition to forwarding the requisition to the Punjab Public Service Commission for appropriate appointments on these posts under the rules.



The petitioner says the provincial government has already completed translation of around 150 different laws which now have been uploaded on the website of the Punjab government while expression of interest has also been floated in daily newspapers for outsourcing of translation of laws of the Punjab.

The provincial government has also received proposals against the expression of interest and the process of consultant selection is likely to be completed soon, the petition says.

The review petition states that it is humanly and practically impossible to adhere to the time span of three months as suggested by the judgment for the translation of the laws from English to Urdu considering the vast reservoir of laws on different subjects.



“It is on account of this inconsistency and problem that the provincial government is constrained to file this review petition,” the review petition said, adding the court should consider extending the three-month condition to a reasonable period.

In its September 8 judgment, the court asked the government to consider and implement within the three-month timeline the Urdu language in the competitive examinations at the federal level. It had also asked to translate judgments in cases relating to public interest litigation and ‘judgments enunciating a principle of law in terms of Article 189 in line with Article 251 of the Constitution.’

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2015.