Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faces a contempt case for failing to deliver his speech in Urdu at the UN General Assembly in violation of a verdict by the country’s Supreme Court.
The court in September ordered the Government to take steps for implementation of article 251 of the Constitution to make Urdu the official language.
The court also said that leaders and officials should use Urdu instead of English in speeches and formal communications.
The Dawn reported that the petitioner in the case Zahid Ghani contends that Sharif flouted the September 8 Supreme Court verdict which directed the federal and provincial Governments to use, without any delay, Urdu for official and other purposes.
He said the heads of other states, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Cuban President Raul Castro, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addressed the UN meeting in their national languages.