Kathmandu, Oct 27: Hearings on old cases at the Supreme Court have been delayed for years, leaving a backlog of cases ranging from two to 19 years old. Repeated postponements, cases that cannot be heard on scheduled dates and cases that are deemed unsuitable for hearing by the assigned benches have contributed to the delays.
Dr Ashok Kumar Chhetri, Supreme Court spokesperson and joint registrar, said the court has been prioritising old cases under its special case clearance programme three days a week.
The court has introduced several rules for cases handled under the programme. Cases automatically enter the programme section after remaining pending for five years. Such cases cannot be removed from the programme, and hearing dates must be scheduled within a period of one to three months.
According to Chhetri, around 26,000 cases are currently pending at the Supreme Court. As of Monday, 9,853 cases had been pending for more than two years, while 1,249 had remained unresolved for over five years. The court also has around 1,600 cases involving detained individuals.
The Constitutional Bench is handling 228 cases. According to the Supreme Court’s annual report, the case clearance rate at district and high courts exceeds 65 per cent, while the Supreme Court manages to dispose of only around 40 per cent of its cases.
A task force was formed on May 24, 2022, to find ways to expedite case disposal after hearings were repeatedly delayed or postponed because cases could not be taken up as scheduled.
The task force, coordinated by then Supreme Court Justice Til Prasad Shrestha, submitted a report containing an action plan, which was subsequently approved by the full court.
The task force recommended establishing a separate bench to dispose of cases that had remained pending at the Supreme Court for more than five years. It also proposed creating a dedicated section to handle old cases.
The report further recommended assigning specific officials responsibility for identifying and classifying cases. Other proposals included extending working hours and limiting the postponement of hearings to speed up case disposal.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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