KATHMANDU, June 22: Stating that the workload in courts is increasing every year, Patan High Court Chief Judge Prakash Kumar Dhungana said on Friday that the courts do not have enough human resource, including judges to deal with the increasing workload.
"We face a huge workload as writ petitions have been increasing in our high court every year. The current human resource including the strength of the judges and the staffers is not sufficient," Dhungana said at an interaction organized by the court with journalists.
According to him, the court has been receiving hundreds of writ petitions under the expanded extra-ordinary jurisdiction of the high courts and the workload will increase further as the criminal code and civil code are implemented after two months.
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"The new codes have compelled the judges to issue the texts of their judgments within three weeks compulsorily. So, we need to be prepared to meet the deadline," he added.
Recently, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Sher Bahadur Tamang said that the judges do not have sufficient workload in courts so the government would not increase the number of judges but would slash the current quotas of judges.
In contrary to his public announcement, the Judicial Council has recently appointed more than 16 judges in various district courts and it has recommended for the appointment of 22 more district judges on Thursday.
"We have been dealing with 1,500 writ petitions every year," Dhungana said, adding, "This is around 15 per cent of the court's total workload."
The Patan High Court has decided 8,023 cases out of the total 13,394 cases this year and 5,371 cases are still pending at the court. Around 20,2,219 cases are pending at all three-tiers of the judiciary.
There are 30,833 cases pending at the Supreme Court; 12,75,20 cases at district courts; and 42,039 cases at the high courts.
"We will be very much specific about time and the result once we start work under the new codes after two months," Judge Kishor Silwal said. "Even the government attorneys will have to meet short deadlines for filing cases and appeal after the codes come into effect. So we will have to work in a completely new environment."
According to Bimal Paudel, registrar of the Patan High Court, additional subordinate human resources will be required to meet the deadlines determined by the new codes.
