KATHMANDU, May 8: The Supreme Court and some other lower courts have suspended their services after their buildings were badly damaged in the devastating earthquake on April 25.
The Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC) has suggested to the Supreme Court not to open the main building to the service seekers.
A DUDBC team, led by Director General Shambhu KC, had inspected the building of the apex court and found that the main building has three serious cracks. "The main building cannot be used as a very high number of service seekers visit the apex court. The building can be entered only to retrieve documents and other things but it should not be opened for service seekers," stated the inspection team.Likewise, the registrar's office and another parallel block have diagonal cracks in the wall.
After the earthquake, the apex court has suspended all its services until Friday.
According to Supreme Court Joint-Spokesperson Baburam Dahal, the court staffers are working to shift the office documents and set up new office rooms in other buildings within the apex court premises.
"The Supreme Court urged the Judicial Council, which was operating from the annex building of the apex court, to vacate the building and the JC to the building of Nepal Bar Council. We are shifting some sections of the court to the annex building and the Nepal Bar Association has provided us the ground floor on our request and some sections of the court would be set up there," said Dahal.
"We could provide other services other than case hearings by Sunday," he added.
A meeting chaired by chief justice in the presence of Law Minister on May 1 had decided to build temporary infrastructures for setting up benches to conduct hearings. However, the apex court has yet to manage a place to set up benches. "We are trying to get a proper place. The hearings would be resumed right after setting basic infrastructures," said Dahal.
As many as 18,000 cases are sub-judice in the apex court.
Meanwhile, the apex court has been collecting the details damages suffered by lower courts.
According to the details collected so far, the building rented by the Patan Appellate Court to run commerce benches has been badly damaged and cannot be entered.
Likewise, an old building of Rasuwa District Court, where hearings were conducted, was destroyed in the earthquake. The court is preparing to set up its bench in the new building, which is safe.
District courts in Nuwakot, Dhading, Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk have been badly damaged while the court buildings in Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, Ramechhap, Lamjung, Tanahu and several other districts have cracks in the walls.