Kathmandu, March 18: Around 19,000 case files that were destroyed in a fire at the Supreme Court (SC) during the Gen Z protests have now been recovered.
Six months after the protests on September 9 and 10, the Supreme Court has retrieved 19,102 case files, according to Information Officer and Deputy Registrar Nirajan Pandey.
Of these, 3,366 files were obtained through the Office of the Attorney General.
The court had also issued a public notice requesting people to return any case files in their possession. Following that, 15,736 files were returned by service seekers, Pandey said.
The Supreme Court has been issuing letters of appreciation to those who returned the files.
To facilitate recovery, the court introduced the “Directive on the Retrieval and Verification of Documents Destroyed Due to Special Circumstances, 2025.”
Under this directive, a three-member committee was formed, led by the registrar overseeing the case division.
The committee has already verified 10,000 of the recovered files.
“Ten thousand files have been authenticated. Work on the rest is ongoing. Recovery efforts are still continuing, though most files have already been retrieved,” Pandey said.
As of September 10, there were 24,234 active case files. Among them, 20,034 were completely destroyed in the fire, while 4,200 were saved. Of the saved files, 2,509 were writ petitions and 1,691 were other cases.
In addition, 197,000 archived files at the Supreme Court were also destroyed.
The fire damage was not limited to the Supreme Court. High courts and district courts across the country were also affected.
Nationwide, 6,533 active case files were burnt, along with 706,071 archived files. Another 4,185 files related to revenue matters were also destroyed.
Efforts to recover case files are ongoing across courts nationwide.
On September 9, Gen Z protesters staged demonstrations from Maitighar to Baneshwor in Kathmandu. Police opened fire, killing 17 people that day.
The following day, anger escalated, leading to widespread vandalism and arson across the country.
During this unrest, the Supreme Court building was also set on fire. The nearby Office of the Attorney General and the Nepal Bar Association were also torched, severely disrupting ongoing cases.
A full court meeting was held just two days after the incident to decide how to resume operations. Within a week of the protests, the Supreme Court had resumed hearings on habeas corpus cases.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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