Kathmandu: Of the 20,034 case files damaged in the fire at the Supreme Court on Bhadra 24, a total of 8,000 files have now been recovered. Court administration said 4,200 files from ongoing cases were found safe despite the blaze.
Supreme Court spokesperson Arjun Prasad Koirala said that by Tuesday, 8,000 recovered files had already been verified, and hearing dates have been fixed in some cases. He said the Office of the Attorney General, along with plaintiffs and defendants, has been submitting copies of burnt files.
The Supreme Court began formally requesting documents from concerned parties from Mangsir 1 after approving a special procedure. Parties have been given time until the end of Poush to submit missing files. According to Koirala, around 400 files are being received daily. In government cases, the Attorney General’s Office has submitted 725 files so far.
The court has allowed the entire month of Poush for file recovery. Even in cases already listed for hearing, benches are issuing orders to recover files if they were destroyed. So far, hearings have been completed in 80 cases after file recovery.
Recovered files go through verification by the case registrar, the head of the case division, and concerned sections before certification.
The fire occurred during a general strike that caused widespread damage to courts across the country. In 23 courts, infrastructure and records suffered heavy losses. Around 933,823 files from ongoing, archival, and revenue sections were completely destroyed nationwide. At the Supreme Court alone, about 83 percent of ongoing case files were damaged. Recovery work is also underway in other courts.
Following the incident, the Supreme Court prepared a special directive to retrieve and certify destroyed files. A full court meeting on Asoj 5 approved the move, leading to the issuance of the “Directive on Recovery and Certification of Case Documents Destroyed Due to Special Circumstances, 2082.”
The directive outlines five recovery methods: collecting copies from courts or other offices, retrieving judgments and documents uploaded on official websites, gathering records held by judges and staff, collecting documents exchanged electronically between institutions, and using other suitable means.
Files are being classified based on five criteria, including case details, case type, procedural stage, jurisdiction, and bench type. Once verified, recovered files will be uploaded to the Supreme Court website, with copies shared with the Attorney General’s Office, government prosecutors, and the Nepal Bar Association.
People’s News Monitoring Service
Comments:
Leave a Reply