KATHMANDU, JANUARY 18

The Supreme Court today decided to cut its service for two weeks after 31 of its staffers, including justices, chief registrar, and other employees contracted COVID-19.

A full court meeting of the apex court, however, decided to carry out urgent court proceedings, including hearing of habeas corpus writ petitions, public interest litigations, other petitions related to public health, and detainees' cases, according to a press release issued by the court.

SC's new decision won't affect the cases that are listed for continuous hearing, as well as the cases where the justices have reserved their verdicts. The court will continue to hear petitions related to case withdrawal, reconciliation, and postponement of cases.

The SC will keep registering new cases and assigning court dates to litigants following health protocols.

The full court also decided that the chief registrar should make provision for ensuring delivery of services in a manner that did not pose safety risk by allowing minimum number of staffers to work from office.

The SC has said that lower courts could take appropriate measures to conduct court proceeding in a safe manner.

A version of this article appears in the print on January 19, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.