The use of Bangla is still largely out of the public sphere despite legal mandates.
English is still dominating court proceedings, signboards, and official documents.
Besides, distortion of Bangla is continuing as authorities fail to enforce laws designed to protect and promote its appropriate use.
Most of the verdicts and orders from the Appellate Division and the High Court continue to be issued in English, while lawyers continue to submit petitions in English despite amendments to Appellate Division rules and High Court Division rules and allowing petitions to be filed in Bangla.
Private entities and commercial establishments widely use English on nameplates and signage, while dramas, serials, and radio programs frequently distort Bangla language.
Jurist Shahdeen Malik told 抖阴精品 that the lack of proper legal vocabulary prevents the full adoption of Bangla in courts.
鈥楾hat is why, despite our wishes, we cannot use Bangla as the court language,鈥� he said.
Shahdeen emphasised the need for Bangla Academy to systematically translate legal and academic texts from English into Bangla.
He, however, said that many existing translations failed to convey accurate meaning, further complicating the transition.
鈥楤angla has been distorted in dramas and across social media because of a lack of quality content,鈥� he added.
Enforcing Bangla as the state language cannot happen overnight, Shahdeen said and added that English remained essential for legal and official purposes as it had become a universal language in the modern world.
Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain, a judge of the High Court Division, has been delivering verdicts and orders in Bangla since his elevation to the bench on April 18, 2010.
He told 抖阴精品 that willingness alone was enough to implement Bangla in court decisions.
鈥榃riting verdicts in Bangla takes more time than in English, but it is not difficult,鈥� he said and added that bench officers lacked training to take dictation in Bangla.
Supreme Court lawyer Md Eunus Ali Akond noted that a 2014 High Court directive mandating the use of Bangla in hoardings, signboards, nameplates, and vehicle number plates had been widely ignored.
The order, pronounced in Bangla, was issued in response to his public interest writ petition but the government had not responded to the ruling, and subsequent High Court benches had shown little interest in enforcing it.
The court also sought an explanation for the government鈥檚 failure to implement the Bangla Language Introduction Act 1987. Despite this law, English continues to dominate Supreme Court proceedings, the Supreme Court Bar Association, and even nameplates and signboards within the judiciary.
In 1987, a legal challenge questioned the validity of plaints filed in English after the enactment of the Bangla Bhasha Prochalan Ain.
The defendants argued that Section 3(1) of the Act mandated that all petitions in subordinate civil courts should be written in Bangla, rendering those in English invalid. However, trial courts rejected their petitions, and a subsequent High Court Division ruling allowed the continued use of English alongside Bangla.
The High Court further ruled that under the Code of Civil Procedure, the language of subordinate courts would remain unchanged unless the government decided otherwise.
The government, however, has not formally declared Bangla as the language for subordinate courts though most verdicts and orders there are now written in Bangla.
Article 3 of the constitution states, 鈥楾he state language of the Republic is Bangla.鈥�
Article 23 mandates measures to conserve cultural traditions and national language.
Section 137 of the Code of Civil Procedure states that the language of subordinate courts shall remain unchanged unless directed otherwise by the government.
Section 138 allows the High Court to require evidence to be recorded in English in specific cases.
The Code of Criminal Procedure also permits charges to be written either in English or in Bangla.
In 2011, the Law Commission proposed the full implementation of the 1987 Act, but successive governments took little action.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer MK Rahman criticised the excessive use of English in all spheres of life and said that it reflected a lingering colonial mindset.
He urged the authorities to enforce the laws to ensure the use of Bangla in all sectors.
A Supreme Court official said that during the Awami League regime, the court, with assistance from the law ministry, introduced Amar Bangla鈥攁 software that translates English verdicts into Bangla. In contrast, India provides translations of English verdicts in nine regional languages.
The experts observed that the continued dominance of English in courts and public spaces highlights a persistent gap between legal mandates and enforcement, leaving the fate of Bangla as the country鈥檚 state language in limbo.
