ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court yesterday sought progress reports from federal and provincial governments regarding implementation of its judgment on Urdu language within one month.Justice Mushir Alam, heading a three-judge bench, was hearing the contempt petition of advocate Kokab Iqbal.Justice Qazi Faez Isa, a member of the bench, said the court had given three months to the federation and the provinces to submit the progress report but none of them has complied the order.

The judgment authored by former Chief Justice Jawwad S Khawaja on September 8, 2015, had directed the federal and provincial governments to take measures for declaring Urdu as national language in view of Article 251 of constitution.Punjab Additional Advocate General Razaq A Mirza sought more time for submitting the report. He said three months time given by the apex court for the implementation of the judgment was very short.

Upon that Justice Mushir Alam said all the law officers of the federation and the provinces themselves proposed this timeframe for compliance.The petitioner Kokab Iqbal urged the court to issue contempt notice to the federal and provincial governments in this regard. Justice Mushir said after examining their reports they will decide about it. The judgment said the federal as well as provincial governments should coordinate with each other for uniformity in the transcript (rasmulkhat) of the national language. It ordered that federal and provincial laws should be translated in the national languages within three months.

The judgment said that the statutory, regulatory and oversight bodies shall take steps to implement Article 251 without unnecessary delay and also ensure compliance by regulates.“In the competitive examinations at federal level the recommendations of government bodies should be considered by the government for the implementation without unnecessary delay.”The judgments in cases relating to public interest litigation and judgments enunciating a principle of law in terms of Article 189 must be translated in Urdu and should be published in line with Article 251 of the Constitution.

In court cases the 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 Article 251, citizens who suffer a tangible loss directly and foreseeably resulting from such violation shall be entitled to enforce any civil rights.