The Supreme Court (SC) has criticized the federal government on Monday for failing to make Urdu the official language of the country despite the directives given to them six years ago.
A three-member SC bench headed by Acting Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Justice Umar Atta Bandial, headed a contempt of court petition against the government for failing to implement Urdu as the official language.
“Without mother tongue and national language we will lose our identity,” Justice Bandial said, adding that “in my opinion, we should also learn Persian and Arabic, just like our ancestors”.
The acting CJP said that back in 2015, the apex court ordered to implement Urdu as an official language, however, no progress has been made so far.
“Article 251 of the Constitution mentions the mother language along with the regional languages,” said the acting chief justice.
He also sought a reply from the Punjab government for not introducing Punjabi as the official language in the province.
The court has sent notices to Punjab and the federal government and adjourned the hearing for a month.
