Since the judicial committee has already made its decision, the documents related to the final stages of the dispute have been burned, which has created problems in moving the judicial process forward.
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Rajan (name changed), 47, of Pokhara Birauta, has been in a correctional center for six months. His wife Rajani (name changed) has been fighting for justice against him for nine months. Rajani had approached the Judicial Committee of Pokhara Metropolitan City on February 20, 2012, with a complaint from Manachamal. She alleges that her husband, who is addicted to drugs, abused and insulted her.
She has demanded that her husband bear the expenses of her children's education. However, Rajan is not in favor of fulfilling the demand. On the contrary, he scolds Rajani. He neither goes to the court nor fulfills the demand. Once, when the city police brought him to the judicial committee's court, he returned. After that, a team including the head of the judicial committee and deputy mayor Manju Devi Gurung went to the correction center to meet him.
The decision on this dispute, which has been going on in the judicial committee for 7 months, was prepared to be announced in the last week of Bhadra. After the burning of the metropolitan building in the arson on 24 Bhadra, the documents and records related to this dispute have been destroyed. Rajani, who is also suffering mental torture from her husband, is in even more trouble as there is a delay in the delivery of justice.
Pawan Subedi, assistant administrative officer working in the legal department of the metropolis, says that the victim side is in trouble due to the delay in the decision due to the burning of the records. According to him, no records are safe except those that are online. He said that there is a problem in the case of disputes related to the ongoing dispute and those that have been appealed.
‘If the court asks for some documents in the dispute that has gone to appeal, we are not in a position to provide them, all the documents from the previous decision since 2075 have also been burned,’ he said.
It is seen that problems will also arise in disputes that have already been settled after the written decisions were burned in the arson. The rent dispute of a hotel at Street No. 20 in Lakeside had been in the judicial committee since 17 Ashad 2081. The dispute was settled after the landlord filed a complaint with the committee after not receiving rent. The decision was made by the judicial committee, with the landlord receiving about 1.45 million rupees in rent. Although the written document was prepared, the petitioner had not gone to get it.
The dispute started after the first operator rented it to a second person after taking it from the landlord. Initially, the condition was that the hotel owner would pay 75 thousand rupees as rent per month. He then rented it to another person for one hundred thousand rupees per month. After realizing that he had made a profit by renting the house, the second person did not pay the rent at all.
The landlord did not receive any rent. After this, he had approached the Judicial Committee in Asad 081. While this dispute was going on in the Judicial Committee, the hotel had already been bought by someone else. ‘The goods there have been put in a deed with the participation of the police and the ward office and kept in one place,’ Subedi said, ‘We have asked both parties for the previous documents to prepare them again after the decision is burned.’
These are two representative incidents, after the documents including 37 disputes pending in the Judicial Committee of Pokhara were destroyed in the arson committed by the protesters during the Gen-G movement, it has become difficult to proceed with the judicial work.
After the documents and records were burned in the arson, the Judicial Committee has demanded documents related to the dispute from the parties, the opposition, and the mediator. The meeting of the committee held on 12 Kartik had decided to give one month to the parties to appear and register the case. Since the committee’s work from 23 Bhadra to 12 Kartik was obstructed, this period has been considered zero time and has been given time until 13 Mangsir to take a date and register the case. The deadline for filing a case and filing a case will expire within this period.
Subedi said that about 20 dispute files have been received after the information and contact of the metropolis. The session, which was stopped when the Gen-G movement set fire to the metropolitan building, has started from 1 Mangsir. The session has been set up in the fire brigade building in Pokhara Shanti Van, where the metropolis has its temporary office.
The session of the Pokhara Judicial Committee is held every Monday and Wednesday. Manju Devi Gurung, the head of the Judicial Committee, who is collecting documents with the help of information, phone contact, public representatives and mediators, said. "We have contacted the parties and the opposition and asked them to provide copies of the documents, and we are working on filing and reviewing the requested documents," she said. She said that the work of updating is ongoing as the details of the mediator have also been burned.
33 disputes transferred from the previous fiscal year and 4 registered in the current fiscal year are pending in the Pokhara Judicial Committee. The judicial committee was formed in the metropolis in 075/076 and justice was administered. Since its formation, 495 disputes have been registered till mid-Kartik 082/83. Out of these, 458 disputes have been resolved.
