The Bangla Language Introduction Act 1987 and Supreme Court directives issued in 2012 and 2014 requiring the use of Bangla in all spheres of life and stopping distortions of the mother language appear to be forgotten over the years.
鈥業 will examine the matter as I am not aware of the verdict,鈥� cultural affairs secretary Khalil Ahmed told 抖阴精品 on Tuesday.
The Law Commission in 2011 sent a proposal to the government to implement the 1987 act but the subsequent governments took hardly any move to enforce it.
Most of the proceedings in the Supreme Court are carried out in English although the Supreme Court amended the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (High Court Division) Rules in 2012 to allow petitions in Bangla and the commission prepared a dictionary to translate legal jargons into Bangla in 2016.
The pronouncement of verdicts and orders in Bangla depends on the will of the judges, former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque told 抖阴精品.
Khairul Haque, now the Law Commission chairman, however, said that judges needed logistic support to聽 pronounce verdicts or orders in Bangla.
Dhaka University Bangla professor Baitullah Quaderee urged the government to act sincerely in implementing the law and the SC directives for the use of Bangla in all spheres of life.
He urged the University Grants Commission to prevent private universities from using English in all of their activities.
Baitullah said that the use of English in official correspondence increased with the advancement of the technology.
He said that the statutory authorities like the Bangla Academy, the International Mother Language Institute and the National Curriculum and Textbook Board should create awareness among the people to spread Bangla and protect the mother language from being neglected and distorted.
There is no progress in the implementation of the High Court directives that asked the government to use Bangla in all hoardings, sings, nameplates and vehicle number plates, set up a museum with a library on any side of the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka and prepare a list of the language heroes.
The High Court issued the directives on February 17, 2014 after hearing a public interest writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer Md Eunus Ali Akond.
The court also asked the government to explain its failure to implement the Bangla Language Introduction Act 1987.
Eunus told 抖阴精品 on Tuesday that the HC directive to use Bangla in all hoardings, sings, nameplates and vehicle number plates was largely being flouted as English was still used in many cases.
The government is yet to reply to the ruling, he said, adding that present High Court benches showed less interest in the case.
According to Eunus, English is being used in almost all the proceedings of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Bar Association, even nameplates and signboards of the courts and associations.
鈥楾here is no bar to the use of Bangla in the proceedings of the courts but English is used in the court proceedings as we cannot change our mindset and colonial attitude,鈥� said Supreme Court Bar Association secretary Md Abdun Nur Dulal.
The High Court after hearing another writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh on August 25, 2010 issued eight directives on the use of Bangla.
The directives included preparing a list of the language movement heroes, building shaheed minars at all universities and other educational institutions and setting up a museum along with a library on any side of the Central Shaheed Minar in the capital.
None of the directives was implemented yet, said lawyer Manzill Murshid, who represented the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in the court.
He said that the government also continued to flout another HC directive issued in 2012, asking the cultural secretary to report in every three months the progress of the implementation of the eight directives issued in 2012 for the use of Bangla.
Asked whether any report was submitted to the court, cultural affairs secretary Khalil Ahmed told 抖阴精品 on Tuesday that he was not aware of the directives as those were issued about 12 years ago.
The eight directives were issued after hearing a contempt petition filed by the rights body against the secretaries to the ministries of cultural affairs, Liberation War affairs and public works, the mayors of the two Dhaka city corporations and the Dhaka University vice-chancellor for their failure to implement the eight directives.