Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, April 13:

The Supreme Court is making preparations to forward its first five-year judiciary reform plan to the government very soon seeking its consent to allocate budget needed to implement the plan.

'We will forward the plan to the Office of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and the Ministry of Finance after a full-court meeting of all the justices of the apex court,' a justice of the Supreme Court said on condition of anonymity. The apex court will implement the plan immediately after it gets the official consent of the agencies concerned regarding the budget allocation.

According to him, the SC is scheduled to produce the plan before the full-court meeting tomorrow. 'We are hopeful of getting government nod to implement the plan that aims at revamping the development of the judiciary. The heads of the agencies concerned have already given the words to provide the budget,' he added.

During a meeting a month ago at the apex court, Chief Secretary Dr Bimal Prasad Koirala, Secretary of Finance Ministry Bhanu Prasad Acharya and vice-chairman of National Planning Commission Dr Shankar Sharma have assured Chief Justice Govinda Bahadur Shrestha of providing budget for the plan. The SC has prepared the plan to reform the judiciary. The SC estimates the plan will cost Rs 5 billion for implementation.

Through the plan, the judiciary will adopt information technology in all courts and recommend the government to amend some legislation to adopt short-cut procedures to deliver justice in time.